115. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 242; “Polio Nurse Will Tell Canadians of Her Methods” Minneapolis Daily Times August 22 1941; “Polio ‘Wonder Nurse’ Off on Winnipeg Mercy Visit” Minneapolis Daily Times August 24 1941.
116. A. E. Deacon “The Treatment of Poliomyelitis in the Acute Stage” Canadian Public Health Journal (1942) 33: 278–281.
117. A. E. Deacon to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, January 6 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K. See also Deacon “The Treatment of Poliomyelitis in the Acute Stage,” 280. Deacon (1902–2004) graduated in medicine from the University of Manitoba in 1929 and trained in orthopedic surgery at Winnipeg’s Children’s Hospital and the Mayo Clinic, completing a Master of Science degree from the University of Minnesota in 1935. He joined the orthopedic staff at Winnipeg Children’s Hospital and the Winnipeg General Hospital and later the Winnipeg Shriners’ Hospital. Deacon supposedly had polio as a child and had a paralyzed leg; Harry Medovy A Vision Fulfilled: The Story of the Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg 1909–1973 (Winnipeg: Pegius Publishers, 1979), 60.
118. October 14 1941, Minutes, Board of Directors 1938–1955, Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg MG 10B33, Box 7, Province Archives.
119. December 9 1941, Minutes Board of Directors 1938–1955, Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg MG 10B33, Box 7, Province Archives. Chown (1893–1986) gained his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 1922 and then studied pediatrics at Columbia, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins. He returned to Winnipeg to take a position as a pathologist at Children’s Hospital and was chair of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital from 1949 to 1959; J. M. Bowman “Dr. Bruce Chown” University of Manitoba Medical Journal (1986) 56: 74.
120. Deacon “The Treatment of Poliomyelitis in the Acute Stage,” 278–281; Helen H. Ross “Physiotherapy in the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis” Canadian Public Health Journal (1942) 33: 285–286.
121. Kenny to Dear Dr. Chown, August 31 1941, Dr. Bruce Chown, 1941–1946, MHS-K.
122. Kenny to Dear Dr. Chown, September 22 1941, Dr. Bruce Chown, 1941–1946, MHS-K.
123. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, October 11 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
124. “Paralysis Treatment Boosted” Newsweek (September 8 1941) 18: 62; “Rationed ho-yo-to-hos” Time (September 8 1941) 38: 55; Marjorie Lawrence Interrupted Melody: An Autobiography (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1949), 182–205; “Soprano’s Return” Time (September 14 1942) 40: 67.
125. Lawrence Interrupted Melody, 193.
126. Lawrence Interrupted Melody, 196; Robert M. Lewin “Comeback” Los Angeles Times June 13 1943; “Diva Returns, Paralysis Beaten” New York Times December 29 1943.
127. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, October 11 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
128. Kenny to Dear Dr. Fishbein, October 5 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
129. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 231; see also Kenny “Results of Evidence Presented at the Medical Conference Held in Minneapolis December 3rd to 6th [1945],” Public Relations, MOD-K.
130. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 229, 230–231.
131. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 231.
132. McCarroll and Crego, Jr. “An Evaluation of Physiotherapy,” 851–861; Table 7, page 857.
133. Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis, 42; Kenny “Data Concerning Introduction of Kenny Concept.”
134. McCarroll and Crego, Jr. “An Evaluation of Physiotherapy,” 852. They had also referred to Arthur Legg and Robert Lovett who were dead.
135. K. G. Hansson “Present Status of Physical Therapy in Anterior Poliomyelitis” Physiotherapy Review (1942) 22: 3–5; Henry O. Kendall and Florence P. Kendall “Let’s Immobilize False Impressions” Physiotherapy Review (1942) 22: 136–137.
136. Kendall and Kendall “Report,” 12–13.
137. On her feeling that her method must “be set down in the form of a text book” so it could be used “for intensive study”; R. W. Cilento “Report on The Muscle Re-Education Clinic, Townsville,” Kenny Collection, Fryer Library, 4.
138. Kenny to Dear Dr. Fishbein, October 5 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K; Philip Lewin Infantile Paralysis: Anterior Poliomyelitis (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1941); Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, November 4 1941, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
139. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, September 5 1941, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
140. Krusen Physical Medicine, 596–599.
141. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, September 5 1941, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
142. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 245–246; Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis. See also “If this work cannot be recorded by description and illustration no lasting benefit shall be derived from my efforts”; Kenny to Sir [Chuter], January 19 1940, Home Secretary’s Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA.
143. Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis, xix. The clinics shown were Rockhampton, Royal North Shore, Queen Mary’s in Carshalton, Cairns, Hampton, Townsville, George Street in Brisbane, and the Brisbane General Hospital.
144. Kenny to Dear Mr. Connor [sic], September 30 1941, Basil O’Connor 1940–1942, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Sir [O’Connor], December 4 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.
145. Cilento “Report on The Muscle Re-Education Clinic, Townsville,” Kenny Collection, Fryer Library, 4.
146. Kenny to Dear Mr. Connor [sic], September 30 1941, Basil O’Connor 1940–1942, MHS-K.
147. Edward L. Compere to Dear Doctor Guderkunst [sic], January 27 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
148. DWG to BO’C Memorandum, October 2 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
149. Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Compere, January 29 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
150. Wallace H. Cole, John F. Pohl, and Miland E. Knapp “The Kenny Method of Treatment for Infantile Paralysis” Archives of Physical Therapy (June 1942) 23: 399–418, and November 1942, Archives of Physical Therapy, published as a separate pamphlet by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (Publication No. 40, 1942).
151. DWG to BOC Memorandum re Lectures by Sister Kenny, September 18 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
152. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 21 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K. In Kenny’s recollection of the incident, Fishbein had phoned Bruce saying that the NFIP “had an iron bound contract with me and exclusive rights to all literature, for which they had paid $40,000. Bruce later claimed that Fishbein had also asked for proofs of the book’s first few chapters, saying “he wanted to check them over”; James S. Pooler “Kenny Complaint Based on Money” Detroit Free Press March 31 1945.
153. J. R. Bruce to Dear Dr. Fishbein, September 19 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K. Gudakunst asked Cole to make sure that Bruce agreed “to insert a flyleaf giving a statement to the effect that the National Foundation had no responsibility for the publication nor does it sponsor the distribution of the book”; DWG to BO’C Memorandum, October 2 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
154. Fishbein to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, September 20 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
155. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 21 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K; Fishbein to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, October 9 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
156. Kenny to Dear Dr. Fishbein, October 5 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Connor [sic], September 30 1941, Basil O’Connor 1940–1942, MHS-K.
157. Fishbein to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, October 9 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
158. O’Connor to My Dear Dr. Fishbein, October 14 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
159. Morris Fishbein to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, September 9 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
160. Lois Maddox Miller “Sister Kenny vs. Infantile Paralysis,” Reader’s Digest (December 1941) 39: 1–2.
161. Miller “Sister Kenny vs. Infantile Paralysis,” 4–5.
162. Miller “Sister Kenny vs. Infantile Paralysis,” 3, 5.
163. Miller “Sister Kenny vs. Infantile Par
alysis,” 2, 5.
164. “Statement Relative to the Kenny Method of Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in the Early Stage” [press release], December 6, 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
165. “Statement Relative to the Kenny Method”; and “Kenny Paralysis Treatment Approved by U.S. Medicine” New York Times December 5 1941.
166. Editorial “Physiologic Anatomy of Poliomyelitis” JAMA (December 6 1941) 117: 1980–1981.
167. “New Infantile Paralysis Treatment Gets Approval” Science News Letter (December 13 1941) 40: 371.
168. “Sister Kenny’s Triumph” Newsweek (December 15 1941) 8: 77; “Sister Kenny Endorsed” Time (December 15 1941) 38: 85.
169. “Kenny Paralysis Treatment Approved by U.S. Medicine” New York Times December 5 1941.
170. Editorial “The Kenny Method of Treatment in the Acute Peripheral Manifestations of Infantile Paralysis” JAMA (December 20 1941) 117: 2171–2172.
171. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, December 27 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, December 14 1941, Dr. Don W. Gudakunst, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
172. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, December 27 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
173. [Review of] “Elizabeth Kenny The Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in the Acute Stage” JAMA (January 10 1942) 118: 179.
174. DWG to BO’C Memorandum: Re Miss Kenny, January 19 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
175. Kenny to Sirs [JAMA] January 18 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
176. Compere to Dear Doctor Guderkunst [sic] January 27 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
177. Ibid.
178. Kenny to Dear Dr. Compere, February 16 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K; see also Kenny to Dear Dr. Fishbein, January 24 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K.
179. Kenny to Dear Dr. Compere, March 2 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K; Fishbein to Dear Sister Kenny, January 28 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K.
180. Compere to Dear Miss Kenny, March 6 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K; Compere to Dear Miss Kenny, March 15 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K.
181. Kenny to Dear Dr. Compere, March 17 1942, Dr. Edward L. Compere, 1942–1945, MHS-K.
182. J. D. Ratcliff “Minutemen Against Infantile Paralysis” Colliers (October 9 1943) 112: 18; “Dr. Don Gudakunst, Paralysis Expert” New York Times January 21 1946; “Medical Chief In Polio Drive Dies In Hotel” Chicago Daily Tribune January 21 1946; see also “Don Walsh Gudakunst” JAMA (January 26 1946) 130: 234; Benison Tom Rivers, 276–278.
183. DWG to BO’C Memorandum, December 10 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K; “Sister Kenny Receives Parent’s Magazine Award” Parents Magazine (December 1942) 17: 38.
184. Kenny [paper “I wish to present to you”] “Handed to DWG by Miss Kenny, 12-16-41 in Minneapolis,” Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, December 31 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
185. DWG to BO’C Memorandum: Re Miss Kenny, January 19 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K; Salter to Dear Don [Gudakunst], January 23, 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K; Gudakunst to Dear Larry [Salter], December 19 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K. JAMA, he complained to O’Connor, “has done a rather poor job of reporting her work”; DWG to BO’C Memorandum: Re Miss Kenny, January 19 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
186. DWG to BO’C Memorandum: Re Miss Kenny, January 19 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K; Salter to Dear Don [Gudakunst] January 23 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K; see also Gudakunst to Dear Larry [Salter], January 21 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
187. Gudakunst to Dear Larry [Salter], December 19 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
188. Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Viets, January 17 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
189. Gudakunst to Dear Larry [Salter], December 19 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
190. Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Compere, January 29 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
191. DWG to Files Memorandum Re Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing Western Reserve University Kenny Method, January 15 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
192. Salter to Dear Don [Gudakunst], January 23 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
193. Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Knowlton, January 22 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
194. “Correction: The Kenny Method” JAMA (January 17 1942) 118: 241; on Fishbein speaking with O’Connor by phone see Salter to Dear Don [Gudakunst] January 23, 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
195. Wallace H. Cole, John F. Pohl, and Miland E. Knapp The Kenny Method of Treatment for Infantile Paralysis (New York: National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, Publication No. 40, 1942).
196. Richard Kovacs ed. The 1941 Year Book of Physical Therapy (Chicago: Year Book Publishers, 1941), 329–332.
197. “The Kenny Method of Treatment of Infantile Paralysis” New England Journal of Medicine (April 23 1942) 226: 700–702. Another editorial in the same journal praised the NFIP’s sponsorship of an investigation of Kenny as “outstanding,” and the endorsement by the NFIP’s medical advisory committee as “proof of the value of the foundation’s farsighted policies”; “National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis” New England Journal of Medicine (April 9 1942) 226: 620.
198. James Gray “Sister Kenny’s Progress: A Triumph for Modern Medicine” St Paul Pioneer Press [n.d.], Clippings, MHS–K.
199. Burton A. Brown to Dear Doctor Gudakunst, December 17 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
200. Lem H. Tittle to Dear Mr. O’Connor, December 6 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
201. Ann van Kavcren to My Dear Mrs. Roosevelt, January 10 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
FURTHER READING
On polio and American physical therapy see Glenn Gritzer and Arnold Arluke The Making of Rehabilitation: The Political Economy of Medical Specialization, 1890–1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Beth Linker “The Business of Ethics: Gender, Medicine, and the Professional Codification of the American Physiotherapy Association, 1918–1935” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (2005) 60: 320–354; Beth Linker “Strength and Science: Gender, Physiotherapy, and Medicine in Early Twentieth Century America” Journal of Women’s History (2005) 17: 106–132; Marilyn Moffat “The History of Physical Therapy Practice in the United States” Journal of Physical Therapy Education (2003) 17: 15–25; Wendy B. Murphy Healing the Generations: A History of Physical Therapy and the American Physical Therapy Association (Alexandria, VA: American Physical Therapy Association, 1995); Donald A. Neumann “Polio: Its Impact on the People of the United States and the Emerging Profession of Physical Therapy” Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy (2004) 34: 479–492; Dorothy Pinkston “Evolution of the Practice of Physical Therapy in the United States” in Rosemary M. Scully and Marylou R. Barnes eds. Physical Therapy (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1989), 2–30; Daniel J. Wilson Living with Polio: The Epidemic and its Survivors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
On medical politics in the 1930s and early 1940s see James G. Burrow AMA: Voice of American Medicine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963); Frank D. Campion The A.M.A. and U.S. Health Policy Since 1940 (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1984), 114–130; Jonathan Engel Doctors and Reformers: Discussion and Debate over Health Policy 1925–1950 (Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 2002); Elizabeth Fee and Theodore Brown eds. Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Michael R. Grey New Deal Medicine: The Rural Health Programs of the Farm Security Administration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Rickey Hendricks A Model for National Health Care: The History of Kaiser Permanente (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Daniel S. Hirschfield The Lost Reform: The Campaign for Compulsory Health Insurance in the United States from 1932 to 1943 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970); Elton Rayak Professional Power and American Medicine: The Economics of the American Medical Association (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1967); Paul Starr
The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982); Patricia Spain Ward “United States versus American Medical Association et. al.: the Medical Antitrust Case of 1938–1943” American Studies (1989) 30: 123–153.
3
Changing Clinical Care
AMID THE EXCITEMENT around Kenny and her work came the wrenching moment of Pearl Harbor, followed by Roosevelt’s declaration of war against Japan and Germany. In this new era isolationism was defeated, Roosevelt transformed from Dr. New Deal to Dr. Win the War, and a massive economic upturn ended the Great Depression. The war also remade American alliances around the world. For the first time Australian foreign policy was formally oriented toward the United States. As American troops arrived they were mocked as “dammed Yanks” but also welcomed by most Australians as they fought alongside Australian troops to push back Japan’s expansion in the Pacific.1
In the United States polio was immediately another war at home. With the declaration of war coming just weeks before the annual March of Dimes campaign, O’Connor conferred with Roosevelt and his advisors, and announced that the president agreed that “even in time of war those nations which still hold to the old ideals of Christianity and Democracy, are carrying on services to humanity which have little or no relationship to torpedoes or guns or bombs.”2
Caught up in the patriotic fervor of wartime America, Kenny volunteered her technicians in Minneapolis—a group she called the Australian Unit—“to give our services to any military or naval fort, camp, hospital or depot” should a polio outbreak occur in any of these centers.3 Vernon Hart, an orthopedic surgeon who had attended her lectures and demonstrations before joining the Army, published a study of knee injuries treated by the Kenny method in JAMA, which showed, according to Kenny, “that this type of treatment is most satisfactory for restoring function after war wounds.”4 Hart did praise the Kenny principles as “simple and scientific,” although—in an argument Kenny did not repeat—he described them as “old ones which have been salvaged from a disorganized field of physical therapy [by] … a sincere, intelligent and practical nurse.”5 As American troops arrived on Australia’s east coast, bringing attention to the nation’s new Pacific ally, Kenny was “always referred to as ‘the Australian nurse,’ ” according to the New York Daily Mirror. “Her Australianism is part of her, and she claims it proudly.”6 “The United States has given Australia Douglas MacArthur,” Chicago orthopedist Philip Lewin declared, and “Australia has given us Elizabeth Kenny.”7
Polio Wars Page 19