"Mended or ended?" Football injuries and the British and American medical press, 1870-1910.

'Playing Hurt/Playing Tough', a dominant ideology in today's football (soccer, rugby, American 'gridiron'), is by no means new. Many books, monographs, and articles have examined the historical development of these games, but the attention given to them in the medical press during the late 1800s/early 1900s has been overlooked. The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, and other turn-of-the-century medical publications regularly included accounts and descriptions of injuries and deaths. More telling were the many editorials in which physicians in both Britain and the United States expressed enthusiasm while also lamenting the games' physical and morale effects upon players, asking whether 'football' should be mended or ended.