Fitness Collection Receives Oldest Known Book On Physical Culture and Sports Medicine – Iron Game History – December, 2005

The oldest book on sports medicine, massage and physical culture, written in 1569, has been donated to The University of Texas at Austin’s Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection, the largest and most comprehensive collection in this field in the world. An illustrated first edition of De Me Gymnastics, by Italian physician Hieronymous Mercurialis, was given to the university by David P. Webster, O.B.E., a Scottish writer, sports promoter, world record-holding athlete, collector, Olympic Games official, and the leading historian on Scotland’s Highland Games.