Biography - Elizabeth Kenny - Australian Dictionary of Biography. Elizabeth Kenny (1. September 1. 88. 0 at Warialda, New South Wales, daughter of Michael Kenny, farmer from Ireland, and his native- born wife Mary, née Moore. She received limited education at small primary schools in New South Wales and Queensland. There is no official record of formal training or registration as a nurse. Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952), nurse, was born on 20 September 1880 at Warialda, New South Wales, daughter of Michael Kenny, farmer from Ireland, and his native-born. She probably learned by voluntary assistance at a small maternity hospital at Guyra, New South Wales. About 1. 91. 0 Kenny was a self- appointed nurse, working from the family home at Nobby on the Darling Downs, riding on horseback to give her services, without pay, to any who called her. In 1. 91. 1 she used hot cloth fomentations on the advice of Aeneas Mc.
Directed by Dudley Nichols. With Rosalind Russell, Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger, Philip Merivale. Elizabeth Kenny, as a young nurse out in the Australian bush.Donnell, a Toowoomba surgeon, to treat symptomatically puzzling new cases, diagnosed by him telegraphically as infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis). The patients recovered. Kenny then opened a cottage hospital at Clifton. During World War I, using a letter from Mc. Donnell as evidence of nursing experience, she enlisted on 3. May 1. 91. 5 and was appointed staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service, serving on troopships bringing wounded home to Australia. On 1 November 1. 91. Sister, a title she used for the rest of her life. Her army service terminated in March 1. After the war she resumed her home nursing and became the first president of the Nobby chapter of the Country Women's Association. In 1. 92. 7 she patented the 'Sylvia' ambulance stretcher designed to reduce shock in the transport of injured patients. In 1. 93. 2 Sister Kenny established a backyard clinic at Townsville to treat long- term poliomyelitis victims and cerebral palsy patients with hot baths, foments, passive movements, the discarding of braces and callipers and the encouragement of active movements. At a government- sponsored demonstration in Brisbane doctors and masseurs ridiculed her, mainly because they considered her explanations of the lesions at the site of the paralysis were bizarre. Thus began a long controversy at a time when there was no vaccination for poliomyelitis. The strong- willed Kenny, with an obsessional belief in her theory and methods, was opposed by a conservative medical profession whom she mercilessly slated and who considered her recommendation to discard immobilization to be criminal. Despite almost total medical opposition, parental and political pressure with some medical backing resulted in action by the Queensland government which was influenced by Home Secretary E. M. Hanlon and his public service adviser, C. E. Chuter. In 1. 93. Townsville and later in Brisbane. The Brisbane clinic immediately attracted interstate and overseas patients. Kenny clinics in other Queensland cities and interstate followed. In 1. 93. 7 she published in Sydney Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia, with a foreword by Herbert Wilkinson, professor of anatomy at the University of Queensland. Grateful parents having paid her fare to England, she was given two wards at Queen Mary's Hospital at Carshalton, Surrey. She shocked English doctors with her recommendations to discard splinting used to prevent deformities and her condemnation of the orthodox treatment of poliomyelitis cases. Returning to Australia, she was greeted with the report of a royal commission of leading Queensland doctors which damned her methods. However, she was given a ward at the Brisbane General Hospital and early cases of the disease to treat. Aubrey Pye, medical superintendent, stated that her patients recovered more quickly and that their limbs were more supple than those treated by the orthodox method. But the medical profession largely ignored her. In 1. 94. 0, armed with an introduction to the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, signed by six Brisbane doctors and her fare paid by the Queensland government, she arrived in the United States of America. At first most doctors rejected her theories of 'spasm', 'mental alienation', and 'incoordination' by which she explained the disability caused by poliomyelitis. However, orthopaedists Miland Knapp, John Pohl and Wallace Cole arranged for her to be given beds in the Minneapolis General Hospital. Her methods became widely accepted. She began courses for doctors and physiotherapists from many parts of the world. The Sister Kenny Institute was built in Minneapolis in 1. Kenny clinics were established. Kenny became a heroine in America and was awarded many honours. She accepted numerous invitations to lecture in other countries and received honorary degrees. Her autobiography, And They Shall Walk, written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso, was published in New York in 1. In 1. 94. 6 she was eulogized in the film, Sister Kenny. Abraham Fryberg, Queensland director- general of health and medical services, and Thomas Stubbs Brown, orthopaedic specialist, after an overseas visit recommended in 1. Kenny method be used in the early stages. They argued, however, that her concept that the disabilities in poliomyelitis were caused by the virus invading peripheral tissues, and not the central nervous system as traditionally taught, was not proven. In 1. 95. 0 Congress gave her the rare honour of free access to the United States without entry formalities. Despite this success, she remained the centre of bitter controversy, partly because of her intolerance of opposition, and returned to Australia several times with little acclaim. A big woman, with white hair which she often covered with large hats, Elizabeth Kenny was an imposing figure. She could speak gently to a patient one minute and harshly criticize a doctor the next. She gained basic knowledge as she progressed and, at times, submitted other people's ideas as though they were her own. Although her views on the pathology of the disease were generally not accepted, she made a significant contribution towards the treatment of poliomyelitis and stimulated fresh thinking. Developing Parkinson's disease, she retired to Toowoomba in 1. November 1. 95. 2. After a service in the Neil Street Methodist Church, she was buried in Nobby cemetery. Unmarried, she was survived by an adopted daughter. Her estate, valued for probate at £1. Kenny Foundation in the United States and a desk and prayer- book, belonging once to Florence Nightingale, were left to the United Nations Organization. Her book, My Battle and Victory, was published posthumously in London in 1. A bust by L. Randolph is displayed in the Toowoomba City Art Gallery. Sister Kenny: Confronting the Conventional in Polio Treatment | November 2. The O& P EDGE. It is hard to imagine now, in the post- vaccine era, the panic that gripped the United States as waves of polio epidemics swept through the country, peaking in 1. The United States was not alone. Between 1. 94. 6 and 1. Smithsonian Institution (http: //americanhistory. Isolated cases of what was called "infantile paralysis" had occurred for centuries, even as far back as ancient Egypt although doctors did not describe its distinctive damage to the spinal cord until about 1. However, polio began to emerge as an epidemic beginning in the 1. In 1. 91. 6, the northeastern region around New York City was struck with one of the worst epidemics up to that time, with about 2. An article from TIME magazine, August 5, 1. As inevitably as warm weather breeds poliomyelitis, polio breeds panic. This year's epidemic, now nearing its peak, is bad—5. Health authorities, faced with demands to 'DO something,' have outdone previous efforts to exorcise the disease. Latest efforts: dusting cities with DDT [dichloro- diphenyl- trichloroethane] from planes, draining of swamps and pools, street cleanups..". Into this maelstrom of fear and disease strode a tall, imposing woman with an unorthodox and controversial method of treatment—Sister Elizabeth Kenny from Australia. Said the TIME article, "Her controversial treatment—hot packs [and] exercise of affected limbs—was first adopted in the U. S. in 1. 94. 0. Objective: to evaluate the work and prove 'the ability of Kenny technicians to meet an emergency.'". Sister Kenny was not a nun. Although a largely self- taught nurse, she earned the title of "Sister," based on the British title for a chief nurse, which in the 1. World War I Australian Army Nurse Corps was equal to a first lieutenant. Despite considerable controversy and struggle with the medical field over her method, Kenny gained recognition in Australia, establishing several clinics throughout the country. In 1. 94. 0 the Queensland government sent Kenny and her adopted daughter, Mary, who had become an expert in Kenny's method, to the United States to present her controversial polio treatment to doctors. She received a cool reception from the U. S. medical establishment. Not only was Kenny's method almost directly opposite of conventional treatment, but the terminology she used in describing her treatment was also foreign to doctors. She used such terms as muscle "tightness" (later she used "spasms"), "mental alienation," and "muscle reeducation," which added to the medical community's skepticism. In an interview with The O& P EDGE, her office administrator, Margaret Opdahl Ernest, recalls that when she first accepted the position, "I didn't know her that well at that time. I didn't know whether she was a quack or not, but I found out in a hurry that she knew what she was doing." Kenny was dedicated to her job, says Ernest. She started her days early and ended late—work was her life.". Ernest continues, "Patients idolized her, but she could be impatient with some of the doctors."Kenny Method Versus Conventional Treatment. Conventional treatment at the time involved enforcing strict immobilization during the acute and convalescent phases with standardized splints and Bradford frames, to which children were strapped on boards, sometimes for months. They were then often put into cumbersome metal leg braces. Richard Owen, MD, retired medical director of the Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis, was himself struck with polio at age 1. I was put on a Bradford frame," he told The O& P EDGE. I was lying flat on that for six or seven months, and then about two months later I was fitted with heavy metal braces.". Sister Kenny's method involved using moist, hot compresses to ease muscle spasm pain, eliminating immobilization during the acute phase of the disease, and gently exercising the paralyzed muscles. She also didn't believe in braces, Owen notes. She thought they taught bad gait habits."Finally, three prominent physicians in Minneapolis- St. Paul, Minnesota—Miland Knapp, John Pohl, and Wallace Cole—were impressed and took a chance on her, despite being shunned by some of their colleagues for this decision. A 1. 94. 2 TIME magazine article noted that Kenny's amazing 8. According to a 1. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, "The Kenny Treatment for Infantile Paralysis: A Comparison of Results with Those of Older Methods of Treatment," by Robert Bingham, MD, "Patients receiving the Kenny treatment are more comfortable, have better general health and nutrition, are more receptive to muscle training, have a superior morale, require a shorter period of bed rest and hospital care, and seem to have less residual paralysis and deformity than patients treated by older conventional methods. The Kenny treatment is the method of choice for the acute stage of infantile paralysis.". The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) endorsed her methods in 1. She became a celebrity and in a 1. Gallup poll even edged out former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as the most admired woman in America. Sister Kenny was a child of the bush. She was born at Kelly's Gully, New South Wales, Australia. In the 1. 8th and 1. British Isles to Australia, and, along with the large number of their descendants, helped build the country. Kenny's mother, Mary Moore, was the granddaughter of James Moore, who was transported from Ireland to Australia in 1. She was the fifth of nine children, two of whom died early in life. Eliza," as her family called her, loved the outdoors. Every chance she got, she jumped on a horse bareback and was off into the bush riding like a wild thing," according to Wade Alexander, author of. Elizabeth Kenny: Maverick Heroine of the Polio Treatment Controversy. During a period of convalescence from a broken wrist, Kenny studied anatomy books and a model skeleton that belonged to her physician, Aeneas Mc. Donnell, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. While living in Guyra with a cousin, she may have received some basic nursing teaching from a local midwife and a local physician. In 1. 91. 1, she returned to Nobby, New South Wales, where her family was now living, and began working as an unofficial bush nurse. She earned enough money from brokering potato sales between farmers and markets to open a cottage hospital in Clifton, not far from Nobby. There she treated her first cases of polio, following the advice of local doctors. Kenny's life as a bush nurse and during World War I was often an adventurous one. She found her way to her patients by any means available—horseback, on foot, and if the family came for her in one, by horse and buggy," according to Alexander. The aborigines, knowing she was out to aid the sick, looked after her. Once when she was far away from any town, an aboriginal man emerged from the woods and cautioned her about the danger of a white woman being alone in the bush, since the area had its share of "bush rangers" (outlaws). The man used the "bush telegraph" (bullroarer—an instrument with a sound that carried over long distances and could be used for communication) to tell his friends where she was going and to look after her. During World War I she was assigned to "dark ships," vessels that ran between Australia and England with their lights off, carrying war equipment and soldiers one way and wounded soldiers and trade goods on the return voyage. After the war, instead of settling down to a spinsterhood dedicated to caring for her mother, which was the expected role for women in her situation at the time, Kenny continued to work as a nurse from her mother's home. Seven years spent caring for a girl with diplegia honed her rehabilitative knowledge and skills. Her life story sounds like a movie script, and indeed it did become a movie, Sister Kenny, in 1. Rosalind Russell, a four- time Academy Award Best Actress nominee. Sister Kenny, based on the book And They Shall Walk, by Martha Ostenso, earned Russell one of those nominations; Russell and Kenny became close friends. Polio, Post- Polio Syndrome Threats. The looming menace of polio ended in 1. Jonas Salk, MD, followed in 1. Albert Sabin, MD. Despite the vaccine, polio still casts a long shadow. It has yet to be eradicated completely and still is a threat in many parts of the world. As survivors of the epidemics of the 1. Sister Kenny's Legacy. Some have called Sister Kenny the founder of modern physical therapy. Not so, according to Marilyn Mofat, PT, DPT, Ph. D, FAPTA, CSCS, president of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) and a former president of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). Mofat is the author of "The History of Physical Therapy Practice in the United States" (Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Winter 2. I would definitely not call Sister Kenny the founder of modern practice physical therapy," Mofat told. The O& P EDGE. Her contribution to the treatment of patients with poliomyelitis was unique, but controversial in some ways.. A combination of her treatment techniques.. Her theories were applied only to the management of polio. Although she did not recognize polio as a neurological disease, her muscle re- education techniques continue to be used in some forms in individuals with lower- motor- neuron lesions, of which polio is one.". Sister Kenny died in 1. Nobby cemetery; a small museum in Nobby holds artifacts and documents relating to her life. The Sister Kenny Memorial Fund awards scholarships to students with an interest in remote and rural nursing. Kenny and her trainees leave behind not only several facilities—including the Sister Kenny Rehabilitative Institute, which treats many disabling conditions—but also a legacy of thousands of child polio survivors who regained more mobility, recovered faster, and suffered less pain than they would have otherwise.
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