Sister Kenny
I had never heard about her before, till I learned about her through a video with Dr. Suzanne Humphries. She talks about Sister Kenney in this video (this link will go straight to the part where she talks about Sister Kenney).Sister Kenny- A Miracle For Polio
Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine
Top review from the United States
And They Shall Walk - The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny - Written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso- Copyright, 1943 - By DoDD, Mead & Company, Inc. Written in the United States of America Hard Cover- 281 Pages No ISBN written any were in book.
This book is the life story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny's written in her own words. Elizabeth was born in Australia and was number 8 of 9 children, the youngest being sickly as a child and was named Bill. When she was 14 years old she fractured her wrist and found out the nearest doctor was 40 miles away. When the doctor examined Elizabeth he took a medical liking to her and he said she needed to stay with-in his care for several weeks, to be sure the wrist healed properly. Resulting from her stay at Dr. Aeneas McDonnell home Elizabeth was introduction of Anatomy talks and many anatomy books, all she could read. A few years later she took her anatomy learning and rigid a wooden man string pulley and demonstrated the full workings of the human body's muscular system and this wooden model physically showed all the muscles origins, insertions, striations and the active movements each muscle performed. She took this learning and applied it to an exercise program and developed and applied this treatment to her sickly weaker, younger brother Bill, and surprisingly over time it did help Bill to develop his body strength, Bill later became a loyal addition to the Australia military and save many of lives. Due to the low amount of medical personal in the area Elizabeth at 23 years old decided to become a bush nurse to address this medical issue and after studying hard she accomplished her nursing training. Then on a cool fall night she was to encounter her first case of Infantile Paralysis or Polio.
The child in question was a two year old neighbor's daughter which Elizabeth always called Pet. Since Elizabeth never encounter the disease before she wrote to the bush doctor DR. Aeneas McDonnell and he telegrammed her back, stating Polio no known cure, just treat the symptoms as best as you can. Since Polio causes the muscles to contract and tighten Elizabeth decided to treat the muscular spasms which she observed upon close examination and she decided from this examination to use heat and decided that direct heat was the best way to accomplish this! So she took soft wool blankets and made them into strips and put them into boiling water and wrung them out to almost steaming dry and then wrapped the child's limbs with the rags and almost instantly the child relaxed and stopped whimpering and actually fell asleep. When the child woke up Pet cried I want them rags that well my legs. And out of the mouths of babes, the treatment for Polio was born. For Pet the two year old knew the heat made her feel better and she wanted more, and Elizabeth put the whole family into Operation Wool Blanket around the clock and several weeks later the child was walking on her own. Quickly the word of Pet's full walking recovery spread across the Bush like wild fire and whenever a child contracted Polio the child was without hesitation taken to Sister Elizabeth and every time the child recovered. When the doctor finally showed up and found out what she discovered he told her she was in for the ride of her life time for the medical world was not ready for such a simple cure from a non medical women. As the years slipped by Kenny treated thousands of children without one bit of acknowledgement from the medical world of her country. For the medical men in her part of the world in reality mentality decided the Orthodox Theory was the correct treatment. Meaning binding muscles, joints and bone under plaster and Polio Braces was the correct medical treatment. Which in actuality causes over time immobility, rigid joints, decreased movement, stiffen muscles, increased spasms and perfectly straight stiff bone posture with posture deformities because spasm contracting muscle tissues or basically Yin screwing with Yang, pulling muscles out of full alignment , causing a fully frightened, terrified unmoving, ridged child and parents.
This book is really a wonderful book. It talks about Polio case after case and after you read this book and acknowledge each child and the way Kenny deals with each child"s spasm limb you will fully understand what a spasm is and how it effects sensory synapses and how Kenny reset the spasmatic tissue correcting the signal that the nerve is sending to and through the muscle(s) to produce normal muscular movement.
30 years later The Kenny treatment was only acknowledged in the medical world when Sister Kenny left her native country and came to America. For the United State wanted Sister Kenny Gift, A treatment a ray of hope where light and self movement and independence was so very dim. For the USA observed that 80% of all Polio Victims after being treated by the Kenny treatment went on to live very happy non painful and self productive lives. On December 17th 1942 the Elizabeth Kenny Institute was opened in the City of Minneapolis and the Sister was awarded the Parent Magazine Award For outstanding Service to Children. Later she was to meet President's Franklin Roosevelt who was also inflected with the disease of Polio, and due to this meeting The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis or the March of Dimes was formed. Even though Polio was eradicated with the creation of the Polio vaccination This book I would recommend to all people who deal with the muscles of the human body in anyway for it will teach you many thing about muscle tissues. This book took about a month of on and off reading and was wonderful reading. I rate it a ten.
This was a great review:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2046113.And_They_Shall_Walk
As you see, I’ve given it 5 stars, but really, it’s her life that deserves the 5 stars; the book has a few flaws. The first few pages aren’t especially grabby; her writing style seems old-fashioned and stilted, and her descriptions of the natural beauty of her native Australia went on way too long for my taste. But on the plus side, she had a sense of humor and peppered her life story with a few chuckle-worthy anecdotes. Most of all, though, it was her dedication to her patients and her fight against the medical establishment that made me want to cheer at the end. I can’t recommend the book highly enough, but just in case you don’t read it, I’m going to present my own detailed summary here and link to a few videos that really tell her story. Sister Kenny is someone everyone should know about.
*SPOILER ALERT*
As a religious person, the first thing that caught my eye in the narrative was Elizabeth’s introduction to the study of anatomy. It was clear Divine Providence! She was an athletic girl, and at age 14, she broke her wrist while horseback riding. Because she lived in the outback, her parents had to travel a long way to get her to a doctor, but instead of staying overnight in a hospital, she recuperated in the doctor’s own home. The doctor's name was Dr. Aenas John McDonnell, and he became one of the main influences of her life. He loaned her anatomy books, and her particular focus was on how muscles worked. When she returned home, she began to put her new knowledge to practical use by putting her younger brother, the classic “90-pound” weakling, on an exercise plan. He ended up a decorated soldier in WWI.
By the time she was 23, she was already an active outback nurse, treating even the aborigines, which is another thing that makes her distinctive. She does express some of the racism of her time and place in her description of the aborigines, but mostly she rises above it. So in 1931, when she encountered her first case of polio, it was an aborigine who delivered a handwritten message to the nearest telegraph office several miles away so that she could learn from Dr. McDonnell himself what these strange symptoms were. And here I’ll quote from the book directly. *SUPER SPOILER ALERT*
”There were four children in the family, but it was the little girl, my special pet, who was ill. She lay upon a cot in the most alarming attitude. One knee was drawn up toward the face, and the foot was pointed downward. The little heel was twisted and turned outward, or abducted, as we say. One arm lay with flexed elbow across the chest. Any attempt to straighten a member caused the child extreme pain. The little golden-haired girl who had gladdened my former stay in this humble abode was indeed very sick, and with an ailment that was unknown to me.
“For the moment I felt beaten, since I did not know what to do until I could get the necessary medical advice. This must come by telegram. The nearest telegraph office was several miles away. There was nothing to do but to ride it out, send my message, and await the answer. The waiting seemed years instead of hours, and during that interval a very agitated father of seven children came to me with the appalling announcement that his ten-year-old son and his four-year-old daughter had been taken with what he called the “cow disease,” and neither of them could stand or walk.
“’They went lame yesterday, just like the cattle have been doing for the past two or three weeks,’ he explained, ‘and today they can’t move.’
“The distance between the two homes was four miles.
“In my anxious suspense, the reply to my telegram was anything but heartening. It read, ‘Infantile paralysis. No known treatment. Do the best you can with the symptoms presenting themselves.’ It was signed by Dr. Aenas McDonnell.
“Within the space of a few days, three more cases were reported to me, making six in all. I shall deal here with only the first case, as it was typical in respect to both the symptoms and the treatment which I employed.
“Fortunately, perhaps, I was completely ignorant of the orthodox theory of the disease. . . I set to work at once to relieve the mounting distress that was evident in the whole being of the disease-racked child. . . I knew the relaxing power of heat. I filled a frying pan with salt, placed it over the fire, then poured it into a bag and applied it to the leg that was giving the most pain. After an anxious wait, I saw that no relief followed the application. I then prepared a linseed meal poultice, but the weight of this seemed only to increase the pain.
“At last I tore a blanket made from soft Australian wool into suitable strips and wrung them out of boiling water. These I wrapped gently about the poor, tortured muscles. The whimpering of the child ceased almost immediately, and after a few more applications her eyes closed slowly and she fell asleep.
“Oh, sleep, O gentle sleep, I thought gratefully, Nature’s soft nurse!
“After a short while, however, the little slumberer awoke fretfully and cried out, ‘I want them rags that wells my legs!’
“And so the little girl of the Australian bushland unknowingly spoke her approval of a treatment that was one day to become the subject of much heated debate among the learned members of the medical world.”
I love that story. It was the birth of the Kenny method, which, as I said above, prevented permanent paralysis in 87% of the patients treated with it. I love it especially because it illustrates the very same credo of innovation mentioned in Need, Speed, and Greed : address the patient’s need. What she observed from the “symptoms presenting themselves” was muscle spasm, and she experimented with different applications of heat until she got it right. The standard treatment of the time was to immobilize the affected muscles, usually by braces, but all that did was ensure that the paralysis was permanent. Of course, Sister Kenny is a little disingenuous here and in the rest of her book in saying that the treatment was painless. Alan Alda, one of the more famous people who received her treatment, said it was incredibly painful. So did one of the former patients interviewed in this history video, which, incidentally, won a prize for the middle schooler who put it together. But both of them say that her method is the reason they can walk today.
Sister Kenny continued to use her method on polio patients, but despite her phenomenal results, she met with resistance. The medical establishment did not believe that polio caused muscle spasm, but muscle weakness, which I assume is why they felt the affected limbs had to be fortified with braces. But Sister Kenny knew she was right and that people’s lives were at stake, so she fought. I mentioned her sense of humor; well, she could also have an acid tongue. But she wasn’t completely without support. Some doctors took her side, as did grateful parents and patients. Eventually, the Mayo Clinic gave her a clinic of her own. It is still an active physiotherapy center today.
As I said at the beginning, Sister Kenny was a celebrity in her time, and what shows celebrity status more than a Hollywood biopic? Sister Kenny’s biopic was made in 1946, and I expect it’s good; she was allowed input on all the medical aspects of the film. The scriptwriter had an afterword in my copy of the book, and it was excellent. I’m looking forward to getting hold of it, but for now, here’s a scene.
Sister Kenny died in 1952, three years before the vaccine was released to the public. Some might say it was a shame she didn’t live to see it, but who knows? Perhaps she became the advocate for it in Heaven. She sure was one heck of an advocate for polio victims on earth.
LIFE AS I KNOW IT: Polio pioneer was shunned by the establishment
Sister Elizabeth Kenny transformed the lives of millions of children around the world and the best we can do is refer to her as 'hidden hero'
Opinion
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INSPIRING stories of women are in overdrive at the moment thanks to the catalyst hashtag campaigns that continue to gain traction daily. Unlike other attempts to raise the status of women in society, this time the momentum isn't going to flounder until it actually happens.
International Women's Day could just as likely be titled "year" or "decade" depending on how slowly this goes, as everyone from the media to the corporate world and sporting organisations, politicians and new age dudes scramble to play catch-up in the smash-the-patriarchy game.
While females are the main protagonists in this mission, other humans neglected by society due to their race, sexuality, religion, physical appearance, abilities etc, are also riding this momentum as we push forward in the fight for diversity and recognition across all facets of society.
But back to stories of inspiring women. At this rate it would be easy to name one a day for the rest of my life but you have to start somewhere so thought I'd go with a woman who is regarded as one of our "hidden heroes" - a title that plenty of women who do really amazing stuff would be pretty familiar with, much like the term quiet achiever or, more aptly, the invisible or taken-for-granted achiever (hello to all the mothers of future adult members of society out there).
Now you would think that developing a revolutionary treatment for polio that helped thousands of children around the world would warrant you something better than hidden hero status in your own country.
If she were a he it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine there would be a few bronze tributes and portraits of him hanging in national institutions of note.
But not in Sister Elizabeth Kenny's case. She's not a household name but what she did was transform thousands of households during the early 20th century when polio was rampant.
She had no formal training but pioneered a technique that went against the medical establishment which, you guessed it, was a pretty blokey affair back in the 1930s and '40s.
Despite no formal qualifications beyond early mentoring by a family doctor after a broken arm piqued her interest in anatomy, she began her career as a bush nurse followed by a volunteer role during World War I, her four years' service earning her the title of Sister, something she cherished her entire life.
It during the early days bush nursing she encountered her first polio victim. Unsure exactly what it was she used instinct rather than what was considered the medical protocols of the time, not so much an act of defiance but not knowing exactly what she was dealing with.
She used hot baths and compresses to relieve pain instead of drug injections, and performed gentle movements with the patient's limbs, stretching and strengthening them rather than the traditional practice of immobilisation by binding and using braces and callipers. The results spoke for themselves and despite harsh criticism as she went on to challenge, rather loudly, the inconsistencies in the medically endorsed techniques. Doctors loathed her but her success meant she was begrudgingly allowed to set up clinics around Australia by the reluctant health department.
She also took a trip to England to set up a facility and published books on the subject but her methods were never fully accepted.
Her gender, her lack of qualifications, her persistent challenging of the establishment, all grated, and when they tried to discredit or ridicule her she fought back harder. After all she was right and everyone else was wrong as well as being astonishingly stupid it was said.
Perhaps to rid themselves of the defiant loud mouth and the humiliating success she was enjoying Sr Kenny was sent to United States in 1940 to teach her much maligned method.
After facing a difficult start doctors in Minneapolis finally gave her the opportunity she longed for and the city became her base for the next 11 years of her life. She soon became an American hero, setting up the Sister Kenny Institute and championing what became the Kenny Method. She received many honours from invitations to lecture internationally to honorary degrees to pop culture's finest accolade, having a Hollywood film made after her.
Her autobiography, And They Shall Walk, was published in New York in 1943.
Despite this success, she remained the centre of bitter controversy, partly because of her intolerance of any opposition. She returned to Australia several times during this period with little acclaim, on one occasion even greeted with royal commission, another attempt to damn her methods.
Between 1934 and her death on November 30, 1952, Sister Kenny and her flock treated millions of polio victims across the world.
Such was the profound effect she had on her patients thousand of letters remain in US archives known as the Kenny Papers and include innumerable letters from former patients who expressed their joy and gratitude at having been treated and cared by her, how much happier their lives had played out because of her. This wasn't just because she cured them but because she made them happy while they and their parents were in the midst of a life of hell. Children at this particular place and time were the luckiest in the world.
One of those was a young Alan Alda, the M*A*S*H actor who once slammed doctors in Australia during a talk show, calling them out on their arrogance and egos after having his body transformed by Sister Kenny's method.
Thankfully Sr Kenny had no time for the establishment that condemned her but she always had time for her "kids".
A robust woman, with white hair often covered with a big hat, Sr Kenny was an imposing figure. She could speak gently to a young patient one minute and harshly criticise a doctor the next.
During the final years of her life before she retired in 1951, she made journeys throughout America, Europe and Australia in final effort for her methods to be accepted while we waited for a vaccine. She developed Parkinson's Disease and died in Toowoomba where her resting place is marked with a simple headstone.
Apparently Sr Kenny didn't like the word miracle worker. The science, however questionable, was sound and the therapy worked. The kids got better. And that warrants more than being known as a hidden hero, plain and simple.
"It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." Sister Elizabeth Kenny.
Originally published as LIFE AS I KNOW IT: Polio pioneer was shunned by the establishment
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