Elizabeth Kenny

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Elizabeth Kenny 1950

Elizabeth Kenny (born on 20th September 1880 in Warialda ; died on the thirtieth November 1952 in Toowoomba ) was an Australian nurse , through their novel treatment for polio by physiotherapy received great notoriety. Her life story was portrayed in the 1946 film Sister Kenny .

Life

Elizabeth Kenny was born on September 20, 1880 (not 1886). According to her own statement, the seventeen-year-old began to be interested in anatomy and medicine after a riding accident and worked for several years as a self-taught nurse in the Australian bush, mostly without further medical supervision. In 1907 she is said to have received formal training as a carer in Guyra , there were no records of this.

In 1909 she returned to Nobby in Queensland and worked as a nurse, then moved to Clifton where she opened a country hospital in 1911. During this time, according to her own statement in 1910, she treated cases of polio for the first time, for which she used heat pillows , massage and relaxation exercises, which allegedly led to a partial or complete recovery in the majority of her patients. Since polio was not widespread in Australia at the time and there were no medical records of the cases, this tradition (including the diagnosis of poliomyelitis ) is controversial.

Elizabeth Kenny in August 1915

With a doctor's letter as confirmation of qualification, Kenny entered the army in 1915 and treated injured people on troop transports. In 1917 she was raised to the rank of "sister" (corresponding to a lieutenant), which she wore as a title from now on. Since in the Commonwealth only formally trained nursing staff and members of the order were allowed to call themselves sisters, she was later criticized for this many times. In 1919 she retired with honor from the military and returned to Nobby, Queensland.

In the rural area, she continued to care for the sick, became president of the local women's association and patented the "Sylvia" stretcher , which she had improved . She donated the proceeds from the marketing to the Australian Country Women's Association . She adopted a girl named Mary Stewart, who from then on helped her.

Treatment of Poliomyelitis

After a successful treatment for a polio patient in Townsville , she opened a clinic in the city in 1932 and treated patients with longstanding polio and cerebral palsy . In contrast to traditional medicine, the lengthy and not always successful treatment consisted of heat and movement therapy instead of splinting and immobilizing the affected body parts. This therapy was highly controversial in the professional world and was criticized in several studies as ineffective; in the face of Kenny's successes, however, there was growing political pressure to introduce it elsewhere. Official treatment centers opened in Townsville and Brisbane in 1934, and across the country in the years that followed until 1940. However, she was denied the treatment of acute cases, even if a patient she was treating did not suffer any consequential damage from the disease.

She published her first textbook in 1937 and was received in England and in 1940 in the USA in Minnesota , where she again confronted the professional world with her own theories on the treatment of paralytic diseases. Always received suspiciously at first, the treatment was accepted after clinical success. The Sister Kenny Institute was opened in Minneapolis in 1942, her method was also recommended by her co-author John Pohl in 1943 and numerous clinics for Kenny treatment were set up in the United States, and in 1946 the film Sister Kenny was made about her life.

Kenny's gravestone in Nobby.

In 1951, suffering from Parkinson's disease , she retired to Toowoomba, where she died the following year. She was buried next to her mother in Nobby. She died childless, and her adopted daughter continued her work. Kenny treated just over a thousand cases, her method saving thousands of people around the world from life as the physically handicapped over the years. The revolutionary method also found expression in contemporary fiction.

Further honors

Works

  • Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia. Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1937
  • The Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in The Acute Stage. Bruce Publishing, Minneapolis 1941
  • with John Pohl: The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis And Its Treatment. Bruce Publishing, Minneapolis 1943
  • And They Shall Walk. Autobiography with assistance from Martha Ostenso , Dodd, Mead, New York 1943
  • My Battle and Victory: History of The Discovery of Poliomyelitis as a Systemic Disease. Robert Hale, London 1955 (posthumous).

Known Kenny Method Patients

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Kenny  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Patrick Ross: Elizabeth Kenny. In: Australian Dictionary Biography. Volume 9, 1983
  2. ↑ Kara Rogers: Elizabeth Kenny. In: Enzyklopædia Britannica.
  3. ↑ also: Information according to the tombstone: aged 72 years .
  4. ↑ among others according to reference databases ISNI and VIAF
  5. ^ A b Elizabeth Kenny: And They Shall Walk. Dodd, Mead, New York 1943.
  6. ↑ a b c d Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures. Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 261
  7. ↑ a b Victor Cohn: Sister Kenny: The woman who challenged the doctors. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1975.
personal data
SURNAME Kenny, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian nurse
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Warialda
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1952
Place of death Toowoomba