This book offers a comprehensive study, and social history, of the development of sports medicine in Britain, as practised by British doctors and on British athletes in national and international settings. It takes as its focus the changing medical concept of the ‘athletic body’. Athletes start the century as normal, healthy citizens, and end up as potentially unhealthy physiological ‘freaks’, while the general public are increasingly urged to do more exercise and play more sports. The book also considers the origins and history of all the major institutions and organisations of British sports medicine, and shows how they interacted with and influenced international sports medicine and sporting events.

As well as being an important read for anyone interested in ‘body history’, this volume will be essential reading for those studying or researching the history of modern medicine, sports, or twentieth-century Britain more generally.