Polio Wars (12 page)

9.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 23–24.

10.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, ix, 32, 38–40; see Alexander
Maverick
, 29–39. Wilson states that she was discharged from the Nursing Service in 1919; John R. Wilson
Through Kenny's Eyes: An Exploration of Sister Elizabeth Kenny's Views about Nursing
(Townsville: Royal College of Nursing Australia, 1995), 37.

11.
Alexander
Maverick
, 46–47; [Cohn interview with] Mary and Stuart McCracken, April 14 1953, Victor Cohn Papers in Elizabeth Kenny Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul (hereafter MHS-K); Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 69–70. Lucy Lily Stewart was born on October 31 1916, and was officially adopted May 4 1926.

12.
Kenny
And They Shall Walk
, 76–77, 119; Alexander
Maverick
, 45–50.

13.
George Draper “Infantile Paralysis”
Harper's Monthly Magazine
(February 1930) 160: 368.

14.
John R. Paul
A History of Poliomyelitis
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 190–199.

15.
[Editorial] “Poliomyelitis and Its Early Treatment”
Medical Journal of Australia
(September 21 1935) 2: 385–386; J. Steigrad “The Early Treatment of Poliomyelitis”
Medical Journal of Australia
(May 7 1938) 1: 801–804.

16.
“Queensland Nurse's Generous Action! Sister Kenny's Treatment for Paralysis a Gift for the Sick Poor”
Australian Women's Weekly
February 23 1935, 4.

17.
See Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 97; “Sister Kenny”
[Sydney] People Magazine
June 20 1951, 3.

18.
See Wendy Selby “Motherhood and the Golden Casket: An Odd Couple”
Journal of the Royal History Society of Queensland
(1992) 24: 406–413. Queensland was the first Australian state to own and operate a lottery. It was established during the Great War to raise money for veterans and war widows, and in 1919 was used to raise money for Children's Hospital repairs, and in 1920 its revenue was part of a special fund for maternal and infant welfare and then to finance public hospitals, possibly as a result of the actions of Charles Chuter who was then managing the finances of the Brisbane Hospital and by 1924 was president of the Golden Casket Committee; this lottery was not formalized legally until 1931.

19.
See John H. Tyrer
History of the Brisbane Hospital and Its Affiliates: A Pilgrim's Progress
(Brisbane: Boolarong Publication, 1993); Anne Crichton
Slowly Taking Control: Australian Government and Health Care Provision 1788–1988
(Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990).

20.
On Chuter see Alexander
Maverick
, 52; Aubrey Pye, interview by Douglas Gordon and Ralph Doherty, November 8 1980 [transcript of sound recording], Fryer Library and Special Collections, University of Queensland, St. Lucia (hereafter Fryer Library); see also James A. Gillespie
The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics 1910–1960
(Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1988); Ross Patrick
A History of Health and Medicine in Queensland
(St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1987).

21.
See Alexander
Maverick,
57–58; and see “Appendix A: Report by Dr. Harold Crawford, Brisbane (President, Queensland Branch, A.M.A.) on a Demonstration on 5
^th
September, 1933, by Sister E. Kenny” in R. W. Cilento “Report on Sister E. Kenny's After-Treatment of Cases of Paralysis Following Poliomyelitis,” Ms. 44/109, Fryer Library, [18].

22.
Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 85–86; Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 94. See also “Appendix A: Report by Dr. Harold Crawford” in Cilento “Report on Sister E. Kenny's After-Treatment,” [18]; S. F. McDonald to Dear Mr. Dickson, March 30 1946 [enclosed in] C. H. Dickson to Dear Professor Myers, May 3 1946, Box 19, Sister Kenny Institute, 1938–1946, Jay Arthur Myers Papers, University of Minnesota Archives and Special Collections, Minneapolis (hereafter UMN-ASC).

23.
“Appendix A: Report by Dr. Harold Crawford” in Cilento “Report on Sister E. Kenny's After-Treatments,” [19]; see also Pye, interview 1980, Fryer Library.

24.
Philippa Martyr “ ‘A Small Price to Pay for Peace': The Elizabeth Kenny Controversy Reexamined”
Australian Historical Studies
(1997) 27: 47–65; “Sister Kenny Visits Bendigo Hospital and Tells Her Experiences”
Bendigo Advertiser
January 10 1938.

25.
For the claim that Kenny's mother had contacted Sir Littleton Groome, their local representative, to pressure Hanlon, see Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 86–87.

26.
Elizabeth Kenny,
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia: Methods Used for the Restoration of Function
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1937), 4.

27.
See Alexander
Maverick
, 55–61; Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, September 18 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 82–92.

28.
[Cohn interview with] James Guinane, November 23 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; see also Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 82–92; [Cohn second interview with] Dr. Philip L. K. Addison, October 25 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.

29.
Kenny,
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia
, 19, 11, 64; see also “Reviews: Muscle Reeducation”
Medical Journal of Australia
(May 8 1937) 1: 713–714; J. V. Guinane “Introductory Notes” Kenny,
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia
, xvii–xxxiii.

30.
See Alexander
Maverick
, 58–59, 63–65.

31.
R. W. Cilento “Report on The Muscle Re-Education Clinic, Townsville (Sister E. Kenny), and its Work” [August 9 1934] Box 13, Elizabeth Kenny Collection, Fryer Library, 4–5.

32.
On Cilento see Fedora Gould Fisher
Raphael Cilento: A Biography
(St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994); Milton J. Lewis
The People's Health: Public Health in Australia, 1788–1950
(London: Praeger Publishers, 2003); Warwick Anderson
The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia
(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002); Douglas Gordon “Sir Raphael West Cilento”
Medical Journal of Australia
(September 16 1985) 143: 259–260; Alexander
Maverick
, 62–66.

33.
Cilento “Report on Sister E. Kenny's After-Treatment,” 8–9, 12–14, 15–16; Cilento “Report on The Muscle Re-Education Clinic, Townsville,” 4–5.

34.
“Infantile Paralysis: Clinic for Brisbane”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 15 1935; “Sister Kenny: Brisbane Bombshell”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 14 1935; [Cohn interview with] Sir Raphael Cilento, November 16 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K. On Wilhelmina G. Wright see Alexander
Maverick
, 79–80. Wright's 1912 article “Muscle Training in the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis” from the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
was republished by the U.S. Public Health Service.

35.
“Sister Kenny: Brisbane Bombshell”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 14 1935; “Infantile Paralysis: Clinic for Brisbane”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 15 1935.

36.
Cilento “Report on Sister E. Kenny's After-Treatment,” 8–9. This fight even reached the
Lancet
; see “Australia: The Treatment of Infantile Paralysis”
Lancet
(June 15 1935) 1: 1408–1409.

37.
“ ‘I Am Nobody's Servant': Status of Sister Kenny's Clinic”
Brisbane Courier Mail
March 2 1935; [Cohn interview with] Sir Raphael Cilento, November 16 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; “ ‘My Work Will Go On In Spite Of Criticism': Sister Kenny's Declaration: ‘Too Important to Permit of Controversy' ”
Brisbane Telegraph
March 27 1935.

38.
Kenny,
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia
, xxiv.

39.
“Queensland Nurse's Generous Action!,” 4.

40.
Ibid.

41.
“Sister Kenny's Paralysis Method: The Statements For and Against”
Australasian
January 15 1938; see also Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 100.

42.
Tom Aikens to Dear Pal [Cohn] [December 1955], Cohn Papers, MHS-K. For additional tales of conspiracy see Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 117–121.

43.
G. W. Rainnie, letter to editor,
North Queensland Register
, April 20 1935.

44.
“Sister Kenny: Brisbane Bombshell”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 14 1935; “Sister Kenny: City Council Motion”
Townsville Daily Bulletin
May 17 1935; see also Alexander
Maverick
, 68–69; Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 96–97, 106.

45.
See Alexander
Maverick
, 81; “Sister Kenny Was Political Pawn in Queensland”
[Sydney] Smith's Weekly
January 15 1938; On Thelander see Betty Newell and Rodney Thelander
Footprints: Life and Times of Charles Thelander, 1883–1959
([Brisbane] Queensland: Figtree Pocket, 1995).

46.
“Report of the Queensland Royal Commission on Modern Methods for the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis”
Medical Journal of Australia
(January 29 1938) 1: 187–224; “Treatment of Infantile Paralysis By Sister Kenny's Method: Report of Queensland Commission”
British Medical Journal
(February 12 1938) 1: 350; “Australia (From Our Regular Correspondent): A New (?) [sic] System of Orthopedics”
JAMA
(March 19 1938) 110: 910–911. The commissioners were Charles August Thelander (chair), Aeneas John McDonnell, Leslie John Jarvis Nye, John Bostock, J. Rudolph Sergius Lahz, Alexander Edgar Paterson, James Vincent Joseph Duhig, and Leslie Wylie Norman Gibson.

47.
“Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 191, 205; “Appendix B: Review of Miss Kenny's Text-Book by Dr. Lennox Teece, October 1 1937” in “Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 220, 222; see “Muscle Reeducation” [review of Kenny
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia: Methods Used for the Restoration of Function] Medical Journal of Australia
(May 8 1937) 1: 713–714. As part of the Commission's investigation Kenny had identified about a dozen disabled patients and provided a prognosis for each one, based on her assessment of how much they would improve after about a year of her treatment.

48.
“Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 201–203, 190.

49.
“Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 204, 222–223. The commission especially disliked the defense of Kenny's cerebral palsy work by F. H. Mills, a young Sydney physician in the
British Medical Journal
a year earlier. Mills had also attacked certain orthopedic operations as likely to “increase spasticity,” a claim the commission considered “so ridiculous as to need no further comment”; F. H. Mills “Treatment of Spastic Paralysis”
British Medical Journal
(August 25 1937) 2: 414–417; see also F. H. Mills “Treatment of Acute Poliomyelitis: An Analysis of Sister Kenny's Methods”
British Medical Journal
(January 22 1938) 1: 168–170. On a letter that Mills wrote to the Victorian minister of health in 1938 praising Kenny's work see Alexander
Maverick
, 101.

50.
“Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 213–214, 219; Cilento [Report, August 1934] quoted in “Report of the Queensland Royal Commission,” 189; see Alexander
Maverick
, 81, 92–98.

51.
“Doctors' Sharp ‘No:' Find Kenny System A Failure”
Sydney Sun
January 5 1938; “Sister Kenny Explains Her Treatment of Paralysis”
Sunday Sun and Guardian
January 16 1938.

52.
“Sister Kenny's Paralysis Method: The Statements For and Against”
Australasian
January 15 1938.

53.
On Kenny in London see Alexander
Maverick
, 87–92.

54.
Anne Killalea
The Great Scourge: The Tasmanian Infantile Paralysis Epidemic 1937–1938
(Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1995), 23. On the founding of the Kenny Clinic in Hobart see Killalea
The Great Scourge
, 11, 24; “Sister Kenny's Paralysis Method: The Statements For and Against”
Australasian
January 15 1938; “Sister Kenny's Camera Clouts For Her Critics”
Melbourne Truth
February 5 1938; Jean Macnamara “Elizabeth Kenny”
Medical Journal of Australia
(February 17 1953) 1: 85.

55.
“Doctors' Sharp ‘No:' Find Kenny System A Failure”
Sydney Sun
January 5 1938; “Sister Kenny's Trenchant Reply to Commission: Says Her Method Was Never Viewed”
Melbourne Truth
January 9 1938; “ ‘Would Be Humorous If It Were Not Ludicrous:' Sister Kenny Replies to Sir Cilento”
Brisbane Telegraph
January 1938, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, A/31752, 1938–1940, QSA; “ ‘So Weary of Untruths' Sister Kenny's Denials”
Melbourne Argus
January 12 1938; see also Alexander
Maverick
, 99–102.

56.
“Sister Kenny's Camera Clouts For Her Critics”
Melbourne Truth
February 5 1938.

57.
See Miss Ethel Dunne, letter to editor,
Brisbane Telegraph
January 17 1938. A sympathetic report on Kenny's patients in the
Brisbane Telegraph
highlighted those who were now independent including a South African man who had moved from a wheelchair to crutches and a “spastic” girl who could now recite nursery rhymes; “Patients of Sister Kenny Tell of Their Recovery”
Brisbane Telegraph
January 7 1938.