The philosophy of sports medicine care: an historical review.

Sports medicine might seem a trendy, market driven health care arena serving to promote the welfare of elite athletes and those who care for them. But a closer look reveals a much older ancestral tree with roots at the very onset of recorded medicine and branches that intertwine with every aspect of today's medical treatment. Indeed, the growth of modern sports medicine practice is a complex interwoven chronicle. In the context of an evolving medical understanding of tissue biology and wound repair, advances in scientific technology, and the growth of cellular pathology, mankind's relentless pursuit of sports-play, competition, and health has fueled the rationale of the present sports medicine philosophy of care.