Early Active Motion in Joint Pain and Stiffness

E. Bishop (“Bish”) Mumford was born in 1879 in Indiana [2] (most likely in or near New Harmony, the birthplace of both of his parents, who were committed to Robert Owen’s concept of that socialistic community established by Owen in 1826 [4]). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1901 and Johns Hopkins in 1905. He obtained postgraduate training at Boston Children’s Hospital and Gouverneur’s Hospital (a hospital originally established to provide care for low income patients of color) in New York. He returned to Indiana to establish a practice in children’s orthopaedics. His practice was interrupted by WW I, where he served as a captain in a base hospital in France. He returned after the war and in 1920 opened the Indianapolis Industrial Clinic with Dr. Jay Reed. He later was appointed to the faculty at the Medical College of Indiana and was one of the first surgeons appointed to the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Crippled Children and the first surgeon appointed to the Veteran’s Administration Hospital of Indiana. He continued his appointments at these and other hospitals until his death.

Dr. Mumford was one of the founding members of the AAOS, and was one of eight members listed as attending the business meeting of the Clinical Orthopaedic Society, October 30, 1931, where the concept of a new national organization was discussed [1]. While the record is not entirely clear, Mumford apparently served on the Executive Committee of the AAOS from 1931 (when according to Heck the AAOS was chartered [3]) until 1944, then as President-Elect, President from 1945–1946, and continued on the Executive Committee until 1950 [2]; that being the case, he would have served on the Executive longer than any of the original founders (and perhaps longer than anyone since). He is the only AAOS President to have served two terms: at the written request of the Office of Defense Transportation in 1944, the January, 1945 meeting was canceled, and he remained President during the subsequent year, presiding over the 1946 meeting. He was active in the AOA and the Clinical Orthopaedic Society (he served as Secretary-Treasurer, Vice-President, and President in 1933, the year of the first meeting of the AAOS), as well as the Indianapolis Board of Health, the American College of Surgeons and other organizations. Among all of his many clinical responsibilities and activities in the 1930s, he found time to assume from his father the management of his family’s 5800 acre farm in Indiana.

The article we reproduce here expresses Mumford’s belief in early mobilization of injured joints. “The motion you gain through early mobilization of the joint,” he maintained, “you do not lose. The motion you lose through long fixation of the joint may be permanent.” This article, published in 1960, undoubtedly reflected concepts he developed through his long experience with industrial injuries.