Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann, Founder of The Paralympic Movement gets honoured with Google Doodle. The artistic Doodle is illustrated by Baltimore-based guest artist Ashanti Fortson, to celebrate the 122nd birthday of Jewish, German-born British neurologist.
After schooling, he was called up for military service. While working as a neurosurgeon, by 1943, he was asked to establish the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. The center opened on 1 February 1944, the United Kingdom’s first specialist unit for treating spinal injuries. He was appointed its director, a position he held until 1966. In 1961, he founded the British Sports Association for the Disabled, which would later become known as the English Federation of Disability Sport. Ludwig was asked by the Government to become Director of the new National Spinal Injuries Centre at the Emergency Medical Services Hospital at Stoke Mandeville in 1943. He taught a whole generation of physicians from all over the world in his methods, and centers were established worldwide. Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson said once, “If I could say anything to Sir Ludwig it would be, Thank you!”
