Sister Kenny

On April 14, 1940, a woman named Elizabeth Kenny stepped onto a pier in San Francisco. An independent-minded bush nurse from Australia, she was determined to shake up the doctors. She wanted to make them reverse their surely wrongheaded treatment of one of the most dreaded diseases of all time: poliomyelitis. She wanted to show that their "paralyzed" children could walk. It was late in her life. She had lost her battle in her own country. On some days her legs ached and on some her hope sagged. She was a crusader, however. At the age of 59, half sick at heart yet stubborn as youth, she had sailed to America to try again. Within 5 years, she succeeded. She relived the classic story of Upstart versus Authority and reminded the world that the learned establishment is not always right. Elizabeth Kenny's one-woman revolution helped start modern medical rehabilitation. She taught doctors to substitute optimistic activity for the immobilization of polio victims in plaster casts for weeks and months, one of the most painful and harmful treatments ever practiced. By this achievement, she prevented a vast amount of crippling in the years before the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Even more important, she helped turn medicine toward a new aggressive approach to all injury. - Introduction.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny, the Australian-born nurse, is remembered by thousands of grateful parents and grandparents of young polio patients, as well as others who were less personally affected, as the woman who successfully fought the medical profession to win acceptance of her techniques to combat the crippling effects of this disease. In this biography Victor Cohn, a prize-winning science writer, details the life of Sister Kenny and her significant role in the history of medicine. It is an inspiring story and one which will be of particular interest to those of the present generation who are engaged in the movement for women's equality. Sister Kenny's struggle against the bitter opposition of many doctors to her concepts for the treatment of polio dramatized the then common attitude of male chauvinism on the part of the medical profession toward nurses. The biography traces Sister Kenny's life from her birth in Australia, through her early nursing career in the bush, to her rise to prominence in America. Much of the narrative focuses on her confrontation with the medical establishment. Throughout, the author writes from an objective viewpoint, and in conclusion he assesses Sister Kenny's accomplishments. - Publisher.