Abstract

A definition of the discipline `Sports Medicine is given in the introduction. The main topics of sports medicine are: preventive medicine, rehabilitative medicine, and performance diagnosis. The first chapter describes the development of sports medicine based on natural science. This development started 200 years ago and led within the 19th century to the construction of different types of ergometers and of various kinds of apparatus for the measurement of respiration and of gas metabolism. Details are described. The second chapter deals with the history of the organized sports medicine. The third chapter illustrates the significance of sportsmedical research for different disciplines within medicine. Internal medicine, cardiology, pediatrics, gerontology, gynecology, clinical pharmacology, and neurology profited by research results of sports medicine. The fourth chapter describes present and future aspects of sports medicine. Tasks within preventive and rehabilitative medicine are described as well as further developments within the scientifically regulated training process of the athlete. Verf.-Referat (gekuerzt)