Polio Wars
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4. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, April 13 1944, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
5. Vernon L. Hart “The Kenny Principles and Injuries of the Knee Joint” JAMA (November 21 1942) 120: 900; see also Ethel Calhoun to Dear Dr. Ghormley, February 15 1943, Ethel Calhoun, MHS-K; “Vernon L. Hart 1898–1950” Minnesota Medicine (1952) 35: 240–241.
6. Elizabeth Riddell “U.S. Swears By Sister Kenny” New York Daily Mirror February 4 1943.
7. Hedda Hopper “Star Nurses An Enthusiasm!” Washington Post July 27 1942. Lewin later recalled that he had written a paper on Kenny and at the end had said this dramatically but Fishbein had asked him to strike it out; [Cohn interview with] Philip Lewin, October 19 1954, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
8. “Miss Barrymore Star of Playlet on W-G-N Tonight” Chicago Daily Tribune January 22 1942; “W-G-N Ramparts Show Salutes Paralysis War” Chicago Daily Tribune January 23 1942.
9. DWG to BOC Memorandum re Lectures by Sister Kenny, September 18 1941 Public Relations, MOD-K.
10. Robert M. Yoder “Healer from the Outback” Saturday Evening Post (January 17 1942) 214: 18, 68, 70; A. B. Hardy [Sales Promotion Department, Curtis Publishing Company] to Gentlemen, January 12 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
11. Kenny to Dear Mr. Connor [sic], September 30 1941, Basil O’Connor 1940–1942, MHS-K.
12. Robert L. Bennett “Discussion of Papers by Drs. John A. Toomey, Jessie Wright, and Miland E. Knapp” Archives of Physical Therapy (November 1942) 23: 673.
13. There were 2 kinds of polio sera: one made from the blood of patients who had recovered from polio, and another—based on evidence that adults rarely developed paralytic polio—was a “normal adult serum” collected from healthy adults; see Paul, A History, 190–199; Rogers Dirt and Disease, 96–103.
14. James E. Perkins to Dear Miss Kenny, May 15 1945, Dr. James E. Perkins, 1944–1945, MHS-K.
15. See also W. H. Park “Therapeutic Use of Anti[-]poliomyelitis Serum in Preparalytic Cases of Poliomyelitis” JAMA (1932) 99: 1050–1053; “Infantile Paralysis” Time (December 21, 1931) 18: 24; S. D. Kramer et al. “Convalescent Serum Therapy in Preparalytic Poliomyelitis” New England Journal of Medicine (1932) 206: 432–435; “Convalescent Serum for Poliomyelitis” JAMA (1941) 117: 1269.
16. For examples of convalescent serum see Richard Owen in Edmund J. Sass, with George Gottfried and Anthony Sorem eds. Polio’s Legacy: An Oral History (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), 30–32; Philip Lewin Infantile Paralysis: Anterior Poliomyelitis (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1941), 122–125; see also Paul H. Clark “History of Poliomyelitis up to the Present Time” in Infantile Paralysis; A Symposium Delivered at Vanderbilt University, April, 1941 (New York: National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1941), 18; Rogers “Polio Can Be Cured: Science and Health Propaganda in the United States from Polio Polly to Jonas Salk” in John Ward and Christopher Warren eds. Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 81–101.
17. John Paul to John Bauer [Pennsylvania Hospital], August 10 1931, #1333 Series 1, Box 1, Folder 14, John Rodman Paul Papers, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives, New Haven.
18. Kenny to Dear Sir [Marvin Kline], August 10 1942, Marvin L. Kline, 1942–1959, MHS-K; see also Jay Arthur Myers “Autobiography” (n.d.), UMN-ASC, 97–98.
19. “Threat to Quit City Is Sister Kenny’s Answer to Critics” Minneapolis Tribune August 25 1942.
20. See B. B. Tomblin GI Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996); Philip Arthur Kalisch and Beatrice J. Kalisch American Nursing: A History (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2004).
21. “The Biennial” American Journal of Nursing (July 1942) 42: 754–762; “Conventions of 10,000 Nurses to Open in City Tomorrow” Chicago Daily Tribune May 17 1942; Janet M. Geister “Twice Five Thousand Came!” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (July 1942) 109: 31; Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 250. The Biennial was organized by the nation’s 3 major nursing societies—the ANA, the National League of Nursing Education, and the National Organization for Public Health Nursing.
22. J.M.G. “The Lady from Australia,” 36–37. At the meeting the delegates unanimously approved the proposal from the ANA’s board of directors that Kenny be granted honorary membership; Excerpts from Proceedings of the Thirty-third Convention of the American Nurses Association Chicago, Illinois May 17–22 1942, 42–43, Box 19, Folder 1, Myers Papers, UMN-ASC.
23. Carmelita Calderwood “Nursing Care in Poliomyelitis” American Journal of Nursing (June 1940) 40: 624, 628.
24. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, January 13 1942, Basil O’Connor, 1940–1942, MHS-K; Jessie L. Stevenson to My Dear Doctor Knapp, February 10 1943, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K; Jessie L. Stevenson The Nursing Care of Patients with Infantile Paralysis (New York: National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1940). Stevenson had graduated from the prestigious Presbyterian Hospital’s nursing school and then trained in physical therapy at Northwestern.
25. Jessie Stevenson “The Kenny Method” American Journal of Nursing (August 1942) 42: 904–910; “Pamphlet on Polio” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (September 1943) 111: 209. Stevenson’s revised guide was distributed by the NFIP as Nursing Care of Patients with Infantile Paralysis—Including Nursing Aspects of the Kenny Method as well as a brief Guide for Parents. For a demonstration of the Kenny method at the opening session of the Connecticut State Nurses Association in 1942 see “400 Attend Convention of Nurses” Hartford Courant November 6 1942.
26. Martha K. Rains “Infantile Paralysis” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (August 1943) 111: 107.
27. Carmelita Calderwood “[Review of] Elizabeth Kenny The Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in the Acute Stage” American Journal of Nursing (January 1942) 42: 121.
28. Janet M. Geister “Mr. and Mrs. Hospital Trustee—You Have a Big Job!” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (September 1942) 109: 176.
29. Helen H. Ross “Physiotherapy in the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis: Kenny Method” Canadian Public Health Journal (June 1942) 33: 285–286.
30. Dorothy I. Ditchfield and Ethel M. Hyndman “The Nursing Procedure” Canadian Public Health Journal (June 1942) 33: 282–284.
31. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, February 19 1942.
32. A. E. Deacon to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, January 6 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
33. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 30 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K; Harold S. Diehl, “Summary of the Relationship of the Medical School of the University of Minnesota to the Work of Sister Elizabeth Kenny” May 1944, Public Relations, MOD-K; Miland E. Knapp to Dear Doctor Diehl, March 10 1944, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am 15.8, Folder 1, UMN-ASC. By 1943 the scholarship class included Ethel Gardner, Vivian Hannan, Ethel Burns, Alva Lembkey, Dorothy Lovaas and Ida Kay.
34. “Sister Kenny: Australian Nurse Demonstrates her Treatment for Infantile Paralysis” Life (September 28 1942) 13: 73; Kenny to Dear Dr. Boines, March 19 1942, Dr. George J. Boines, 1941–1946, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Boines, August 15 1942, Dr. George J. Boines, 1941–1946, MHS-K; Ethel Gardner to Dear Sister Kenny, [1942], Ethel Gardner, 1942–1943, MHS-K. Ethel Gardner and Alva Lembkey to Dear Sister Kenny, September 15 1942, Ethel Gardner, 1942–1943, MHS-K; Ethel Gardner to Dear Sister Kenny, September 15 1942, Ethel Gardner, 1942–1943, MHS-K; “Treatment for Polio” Time (August 10 1942) 40: 46.
35. Kenny to Dear Dr. McGuinness, May 13 1942, Dr. Madge C. L. McGuinness, 1941–1943, MHS-K.
36. Ibid.
37. Knapp to Dear Doctor Diehl, March 10 1944; “The only thing worse than not having a good treatment for a disease,” according to O’Connor, was “to have a good treatment which the public could not obtain”; O’Connor to Diehl [1942] quoted in Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, November 30 1950, George C. Crosby 1943–1951, MHS-K; see also Diehl, “Summary.�
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38. Diehl “Summary.” There were also 1-week courses for nurses to learn to apply the packs, which were discontinued in February 1943. For other medical postgraduate courses see “Courses for Continuation Study” JAMA (September 20 1941) 117: 1027; “Continuation Courses for Practicing Physicians” JAMA (January 3 1942) 118: 69–75.
39. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, February 26 1942, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
40. Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Diehl, February 16 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
41. Robert L. Bennett to Dear Mr. O’Connor, January 19 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
42. Robert L. Bennett to Dear Mr. O’Connor, January 19 1942. To supply communities “with trained personnel capable of introducing the Kenny technique,” O’Connor and Gudakunst debated whether the training for physical therapists could be shortened to 2 months instead of 6 months, and what the “minimum time” could be to teach physicians; DWG to BO’C Memorandum: Re Kenny Program, Dr. Robert Bennett’s Communication of January 19, 1942, January 22 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.
43. “Kenny Method Courses Now in 6 Centers; Chapter Participation Again Urged” National Foundation News (October 1942) 1: 57; Mary Morton “Action Groups On ‘Polio’ ” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (August 1943) 111: 109; A. L. Van Horn [Assistant Director for Crippled Children, Division of Health Services, Children’s Bureau] to Miss Louise Reville, March 26 1943, Central File 1941–1944, Children’s Bureau, Box 102, Record Group 102, Infantile Paralysis 4-5-16-1, National Archives.
44. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, September 5 1941, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
45. Memorandum of a Conference Held May 5, 1943 on the Program and Training in the Kenny Method of the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am 15.8, Folder 16, UMN-ASC.
46. Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 30 1943.
47. Kenny to Diehl, July 19 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
48. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, February 19 1942.
49. “Polio’s Mortal Enemy Can’t Stand ‘Orthodoxy’ ” Free Press (London, Ontario), November 6 1944, Wilson Collection; see also Ella Frances Johnson to My Dear Sister Kenny, September 27 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
50. Robert L. Bennett to Dear Miss Kenny, January 24 1942, Dr. Robert L. Bennett, 1942–1943, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Bennett, March 10 1942, Dr. Robert L. Bennett, 1942–1943, MHS-K. For the claim that Kenny “wanted so badly to go to Warm Springs and change it over to her method of working” but Irwin and Bennett decided that instead of having her go to Georgia they would send Plastridge to her for training instead see L. Caitlin Smith “Alice Lou Plastridge-Converse” PT: Magazine of Physical Therapy (2000) 8: 42.
51. Kenny to Dear Mr. O’Connor, June 12 1942, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am 15.8, Folder 4, UMN-ASC.
52. Kamlesh Kumari to Dear Sister Kenny, September 12 1944, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
53. Charlotte Anderson to Dear Sister Kenny, March 19 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
54. Dorothy Behlow to Dear Sister Kenny, April 8 1942, Dorothy Behlow, 1942–1943, MHS-K.
55. Adelaide Smith to Dear Sister Kenny, June 15 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
56. Ella Frances Johnson to My Dear Sister Kenny, September 27 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K; Ella Frances Johnson to Dear Sister Kenny, November 3 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
57. Ethel Gardner to Dear Sister Kenny, July 17 1942, Ethel Gardner, 1942–1943, MHS-K.
58. Emily J. Griffin to My Dear Sister Kenny, October 9 1941, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
59. Kenny to Dear Dr. Bennett, March 10 1942; see also Lorraine Paulson to Kenny, March 11, 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
60. Kamlesh Kumari to Dear Sister Kenny, September 12 1944, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
61. Ruth Giaciolli to Dear Sister Kenny, February 16 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
62. Ibid; see for example R.E.D. “A Step Forward in Poliomyelitis Care” Journal of the American Osteopathic Association (January 1942) 41: n.p. [reprint], Public Relations, MOD-K.
63. Charlotte Anderson to Dear Sister Kenny, June 2 1943, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K; “A Book A Day [And They Shall Walk]” Honolulu Star Bulletin June 23 1943. The NFIP had already paid for the hospital’s physical therapist Sybil Jennings Vorheis to take a short Kenny course a few months earlier.
64. Miland E. Knapp to Dear Dr. Diehl, May 21 1943, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am 15.8, Folder 16, UMN-ASC. On the idea of doctor, nurse, and physical therapist “from each institution, so that they can work as a team” see Miland E. Knapp “The Kenny Treatment for Infantile Paralysis” Archives of Physical Therapy (November 1942) 23: 668.
65. George J. Boines “Observation of the Kenny Treatment” Delaware State Medical Journal (January 1942) 14: 11–14.
66. Ethel Calhoun to Dear Dr. Ghormley, February 15 1943.
67. Diehl “Summary;” Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Diehl, February 16 1942.
68. Memorandum of Conference Held May 5, 1943 on the Program and Training in the Kenny Method; see also Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 255.
69. Edward L. Compere to Dear Doctor Guderkunst [sic], January 27 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K. A month after Philip Stimson described Kenny’s work to a group of physicians in Buffalo, a local doctor assured him that the city’s single case of paralytic polio had been “placed on a make shift Sister Kenny technique and is doing remarkably well”; Bill [William J. Orr] to Dear Phil [Stimson], June 18 1942, Box 2, Folder 3, Correspondence re Medical Talks, Stimson Papers.
70. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 223–224.
71. T. C. Kimble [M.D. Kansas state polio epidemiologist] to Sister Elizabeth Kenney [sic] & Associate, August 2 1943, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am 15.8, Folder 1, UMN-ASC.
72. Esther I. McEachen to Dear Miss [Mary Stewart] Kenny, October 15 1942, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K; see also a description of an evening meeting in Indianapolis, Charlotte Anderson to Dear Sister Kenny, April 4 1943, Technicians—Misc., undated and 1941–1949, MHS-K.
73. F. H. Krusen “Observations on the Kenny Treatment of Poliomyelitis” Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic (August 12 1942) 17: 452.
74. For examples of the claim that physicians were initially skeptical see Don W. Gudakunst “Up To Date on Infantile Paralysis” Parents’ Magazine (June 1942) 17: 75; “New Technique For Paralysis Cases Accepted” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin October 18 1942; “Girl Walks Again in Kenny Cure Test” New York Times October 27 1942.
75. Krusen “Observations on the Kenny Treatment of Poliomyelitis,” 449–460; Gudakunst to Dear Doctor Compere, January 29 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K. See also Winnipeg orthopedist Alfred Deacon who visited Kenny in Minneapolis with funding from the NFIP, and assured Gudakunst that he had also traveled to Rochester to talk with Krusen for “I also knew that he had not definitely endorsed Sister Kenny’s treatment”; A. E. Deacon to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, January 6 1942.
76. Kenny, letter to editor, British Medical Journal (January 29 1944) 1: 163.
77. 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; Miland E. Knapp “The Kenny Treatment for Infantile Paralysis” Archives of Physical Therapy (November 1942) 23: 668–673. The Cole, Pohl, and Knapp paper was published as a separate pamphlet by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis; 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). Typical was an editorial in the British
Lancet that praised the University of Minnesota group as “composed of men who at the outset were sceptical [sic] of the value of the method; “The Kenny Method In Poliomyelitis” Lancet (January 30 1943) 241: 148.
78. “New Technique For Paralysis Cases Accepted” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin October 18 1942.
79. Elizabeth Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in the Acute Stage (Minneapolis: Bruce Publishing Company, 1941), 102; Lewin Infantile Paralysis, 137–138.
80. Yoder “Healer from the Outback,” 18; see also Kenny to Dear Dr. Fishbein, October 5 1941, Public Relations, MOD-K.
81. Lewin “The Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis during the Acute Stage” Illinois Medical Journal (April 1942) 81: 281–296; see also “Official Program of the One Hundred Second Annual Meeting, Illinois State Medical Society” Illinois Medical Journal (May 1942) 81: 366.
82. [Cohn interview with] Lewin, October 19 1954.
83. “Dr. Philip Stimson Dead at 82: Active in the Fight Against Polio” New York Times September 14 1971.
84. Philip Stimson “Poliomyelitis,” Address before the York County Medical Society, York, Pennsylvania, Friday, August 22 1941, Box 1, Folder 16, Address by PMS to York County Medical Society, Stimson Papers.
85. Philip Stimson “Kenny Treatment & Minimizing the After Effects of Polio” [notes] September 26 1941, Box 2, Folder 1, Correspondence re Medical Talks, Stimson Papers.
86. Ibid. Stimson began using Kenny’s methods with patients at the Willard Parker Hospital, and the director of New York Orthopedic Hospital Alan DeForrest Smith and his head physical therapist William Benham Snow “promised to continue the Kenny treatment”; Philip Stimson to Dear Joe [Stokes], December 3 1941, Box 2, Folder 2, Correspondence re Medical Talks, Stimson Papers. Stimson also gave a joint speech with Wallace Cole to the Medical Society of Westchester County in March 1942 where he was described as “foremost in the development and recognition of the Kenny treatment”; “Program of March Meeting” Westchester Medical Bulletin (March 1942) 10: 8.
87. Boines “Observation of the Kenny Treatment,” 11–14; Kenny “The Technique of the Kenny Treatment: Delivered by Miss Kenny 1-7-42 at Einhorn Auditorium and Lenox Hill Hospital before N.Y. Physical Therapy Society” [attached to] Program of New York Physical Therapy Society, January 7 1942, Public Relations, MOD-K.