Key result
A historical perspective highlights the ongoing medical debate regarding the physical dangers of boxing and the American Medical Association's efforts to investigate its severity.
Provides a historical perspective on the medical debate surrounding boxing and argues why physicians should oppose the sport due to its physical dangers.
The pioneering studies in the 1920s by Harrison Martland, MD, of the physical effects of boxing are credited with initiating the medical debate on the sport.1In strictly health-related terms, this is true. Since the appearance of Martland's work, numerous articles and reports have pointed to boxing's physical dangers.2(pp247-251)Nonetheless, significant numbers of physicians remain unconvinced by what they consider inconclusive evidence or flawed studies. Consequently, physicians have sent mixed signals on the sport's dangers and, intendedly or not, become promoters of an indisputably violent activity.3 Even before the tragic death of South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim after a nationally televised championship fight against Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini in November 1982, the American Medical Association, troubled by the sport's obvious dangers, had commissioned a panel, under the auspices of its Council on Scientific Affairs, to investigate their extent and severity. As a result, the Council recommended
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Jeffrey T. Sammons (1989) conducted an editorial in Physical effects of boxing. Boxing was evaluated. A historical perspective highlights the ongoing medical debate regarding the physical dangers of boxing and the American Medical Association's efforts to investigate its severity.
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