Patty Cordoba | Receiving treatment from a physical therapist can be a wonderfully soothing, not to mention… well… therapeutic experience. The skills involved in diagnosing, manipulating and restoring natural movement to patients with musculoskeletal and other issues are unique and can be quite wonderful. And those who think of it as a relatively new discipline might by surprised to learn that its first practitioner was Hipprocrates who, according to the open knowledge resource Physiopedia, advocated massage, hydrotherapy and manual therapy treatments as long ago as 460 B.C.