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And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny
281 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
95 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Kenny
4 books2 followersElizabeth Kenny was an unaccredited Australian nurse who promoted a controversial new approach to the treatment of poliomyelitis in the era before mass vaccination eradicated the disease in most countries. Her findings ran counter to conventional medical wisdom; they demonstrated the need to exercise muscles affected by polio instead of immobilizing them. Kenny's principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy, or physiotherapy.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 5, 2020
If you were born after the 1950’s, chances are you’ve never heard of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, though she was so celebrated in her own time that in 1951, the year before her death, she beat Eleanor Roosevelt as the most admired woman in the world. So who was this widely admired woman? Well, first of all, she was not a nun. “Sister” refers to her rank as a head nurse. And what a nurse she was! She invented a treatment for polio that had an 87% success rate in preventing paralysis. This book is her autobiography.
As you see, I’ve given it 5 stars, but really, it’s her life that deserves the 5 stars; the book has a few flaws. The first few pages aren’t especially grabby; her writing style seems old-fashioned and stilted, and her descriptions of the natural beauty of her native Australia went on way too long for my taste. But on the plus side, she had a sense of humor and peppered her life story with a few chuckle-worthy anecdotes. Most of all, though, it was her dedication to her patients and her fight against the medical establishment that made me want to cheer at the end. I can’t recommend the book highly enough, but just in case you don’t read it, I’m going to present my own detailed summary here and link to a few videos that really tell her story. Sister Kenny is someone everyone should know about.
*SPOILER ALERT*
As a religious person, the first thing that caught my eye in the narrative was Elizabeth’s introduction to the study of anatomy. It was clear Divine Providence! She was an athletic girl, and at age 14, she broke her wrist while horseback riding. Because she lived in the outback, her parents had to travel a long way to get her to a doctor, but instead of staying overnight in a hospital, she recuperated in the doctor’s own home. The doctor's name was Dr. Aenas John McDonnell, and he became one of the main influences of her life. He loaned her anatomy books, and her particular focus was on how muscles worked. When she returned home, she began to put her new knowledge to practical use by putting her younger brother, the classic “90-pound” weakling, on an exercise plan. He ended up a decorated soldier in WWI.
By the time she was 23, she was already an active outback nurse, treating even the aborigines, which is another thing that makes her distinctive. She does express some of the racism of her time and place in her description of the aborigines, but mostly she rises above it. So in 1931, when she encountered her first case of polio, it was an aborigine who delivered a handwritten message to the nearest telegraph office several miles away so that she could learn from Dr. McDonnell himself what these strange symptoms were. And here I’ll quote from the book directly. *SUPER SPOILER ALERT*
”There were four children in the family, but it was the little girl, my special pet, who was ill. She lay upon a cot in the most alarming attitude. One knee was drawn up toward the face, and the foot was pointed downward. The little heel was twisted and turned outward, or abducted, as we say. One arm lay with flexed elbow across the chest. Any attempt to straighten a member caused the child extreme pain. The little golden-haired girl who had gladdened my former stay in this humble abode was indeed very sick, and with an ailment that was unknown to me.
“For the moment I felt beaten, since I did not know what to do until I could get the necessary medical advice. This must come by telegram. The nearest telegraph office was several miles away. There was nothing to do but to ride it out, send my message, and await the answer. The waiting seemed years instead of hours, and during that interval a very agitated father of seven children came to me with the appalling announcement that his ten-year-old son and his four-year-old daughter had been taken with what he called the “cow disease,” and neither of them could stand or walk.
“’They went lame yesterday, just like the cattle have been doing for the past two or three weeks,’ he explained, ‘and today they can’t move.’
“The distance between the two homes was four miles.
“In my anxious suspense, the reply to my telegram was anything but heartening. It read, ‘Infantile paralysis. No known treatment. Do the best you can with the symptoms presenting themselves.’ It was signed by Dr. Aenas McDonnell.
“Within the space of a few days, three more cases were reported to me, making six in all. I shall deal here with only the first case, as it was typical in respect to both the symptoms and the treatment which I employed.
“Fortunately, perhaps, I was completely ignorant of the orthodox theory of the disease. . . I set to work at once to relieve the mounting distress that was evident in the whole being of the disease-racked child. . . I knew the relaxing power of heat. I filled a frying pan with salt, placed it over the fire, then poured it into a bag and applied it to the leg that was giving the most pain. After an anxious wait, I saw that no relief followed the application. I then prepared a linseed meal poultice, but the weight of this seemed only to increase the pain.
“At last I tore a blanket made from soft Australian wool into suitable strips and wrung them out of boiling water. These I wrapped gently about the poor, tortured muscles. The whimpering of the child ceased almost immediately, and after a few more applications her eyes closed slowly and she fell asleep.
“Oh, sleep, O gentle sleep, I thought gratefully, Nature’s soft nurse!
“After a short while, however, the little slumberer awoke fretfully and cried out, ‘I want them rags that wells my legs!’
“And so the little girl of the Australian bushland unknowingly spoke her approval of a treatment that was one day to become the subject of much heated debate among the learned members of the medical world.”
I love that story. It was the birth of the Kenny method, which, as I said above, prevented permanent paralysis in 87% of the patients treated with it. I love it especially because it illustrates the very same credo of innovation mentioned in Need, Speed, and Greed : address the patient’s need. What she observed from the “symptoms presenting themselves” was muscle spasm, and she experimented with different applications of heat until she got it right. The standard treatment of the time was to immobilize the affected muscles, usually by braces, but all that did was ensure that the paralysis was permanent. Of course, Sister Kenny is a little disingenuous here and in the rest of her book in saying that the treatment was painless. Alan Alda, one of the more famous people who received her treatment, said it was incredibly painful. So did one of the former patients interviewed in this history video, which, incidentally, won a prize for the middle schooler who put it together. But both of them say that her method is the reason they can walk today.
Sister Kenny continued to use her method on polio patients, but despite her phenomenal results, she met with resistance. The medical establishment did not believe that polio caused muscle spasm, but muscle weakness, which I assume is why they felt the affected limbs had to be fortified with braces. But Sister Kenny knew she was right and that people’s lives were at stake, so she fought. I mentioned her sense of humor; well, she could also have an acid tongue. But she wasn’t completely without support. Some doctors took her side, as did grateful parents and patients. Eventually, the Mayo Clinic gave her a clinic of her own. It is still an active physiotherapy center today.
As I said at the beginning, Sister Kenny was a celebrity in her time, and what shows celebrity status more than a Hollywood biopic? Sister Kenny’s biopic was made in 1946, and I expect it’s good; she was allowed input on all the medical aspects of the film. The scriptwriter had an afterword in my copy of the book, and it was excellent. I’m looking forward to getting hold of it, but for now, here’s a scene.
Sister Kenny died in 1952, three years before the vaccine was released to the public. Some might say it was a shame she didn’t live to see it, but who knows? Perhaps she became the advocate for it in Heaven. She sure was one heck of an advocate for polio victims on earth.
As you see, I’ve given it 5 stars, but really, it’s her life that deserves the 5 stars; the book has a few flaws. The first few pages aren’t especially grabby; her writing style seems old-fashioned and stilted, and her descriptions of the natural beauty of her native Australia went on way too long for my taste. But on the plus side, she had a sense of humor and peppered her life story with a few chuckle-worthy anecdotes. Most of all, though, it was her dedication to her patients and her fight against the medical establishment that made me want to cheer at the end. I can’t recommend the book highly enough, but just in case you don’t read it, I’m going to present my own detailed summary here and link to a few videos that really tell her story. Sister Kenny is someone everyone should know about.
*SPOILER ALERT*
As a religious person, the first thing that caught my eye in the narrative was Elizabeth’s introduction to the study of anatomy. It was clear Divine Providence! She was an athletic girl, and at age 14, she broke her wrist while horseback riding. Because she lived in the outback, her parents had to travel a long way to get her to a doctor, but instead of staying overnight in a hospital, she recuperated in the doctor’s own home. The doctor's name was Dr. Aenas John McDonnell, and he became one of the main influences of her life. He loaned her anatomy books, and her particular focus was on how muscles worked. When she returned home, she began to put her new knowledge to practical use by putting her younger brother, the classic “90-pound” weakling, on an exercise plan. He ended up a decorated soldier in WWI.
By the time she was 23, she was already an active outback nurse, treating even the aborigines, which is another thing that makes her distinctive. She does express some of the racism of her time and place in her description of the aborigines, but mostly she rises above it. So in 1931, when she encountered her first case of polio, it was an aborigine who delivered a handwritten message to the nearest telegraph office several miles away so that she could learn from Dr. McDonnell himself what these strange symptoms were. And here I’ll quote from the book directly. *SUPER SPOILER ALERT*
”There were four children in the family, but it was the little girl, my special pet, who was ill. She lay upon a cot in the most alarming attitude. One knee was drawn up toward the face, and the foot was pointed downward. The little heel was twisted and turned outward, or abducted, as we say. One arm lay with flexed elbow across the chest. Any attempt to straighten a member caused the child extreme pain. The little golden-haired girl who had gladdened my former stay in this humble abode was indeed very sick, and with an ailment that was unknown to me.
“For the moment I felt beaten, since I did not know what to do until I could get the necessary medical advice. This must come by telegram. The nearest telegraph office was several miles away. There was nothing to do but to ride it out, send my message, and await the answer. The waiting seemed years instead of hours, and during that interval a very agitated father of seven children came to me with the appalling announcement that his ten-year-old son and his four-year-old daughter had been taken with what he called the “cow disease,” and neither of them could stand or walk.
“’They went lame yesterday, just like the cattle have been doing for the past two or three weeks,’ he explained, ‘and today they can’t move.’
“The distance between the two homes was four miles.
“In my anxious suspense, the reply to my telegram was anything but heartening. It read, ‘Infantile paralysis. No known treatment. Do the best you can with the symptoms presenting themselves.’ It was signed by Dr. Aenas McDonnell.
“Within the space of a few days, three more cases were reported to me, making six in all. I shall deal here with only the first case, as it was typical in respect to both the symptoms and the treatment which I employed.
“Fortunately, perhaps, I was completely ignorant of the orthodox theory of the disease. . . I set to work at once to relieve the mounting distress that was evident in the whole being of the disease-racked child. . . I knew the relaxing power of heat. I filled a frying pan with salt, placed it over the fire, then poured it into a bag and applied it to the leg that was giving the most pain. After an anxious wait, I saw that no relief followed the application. I then prepared a linseed meal poultice, but the weight of this seemed only to increase the pain.
“At last I tore a blanket made from soft Australian wool into suitable strips and wrung them out of boiling water. These I wrapped gently about the poor, tortured muscles. The whimpering of the child ceased almost immediately, and after a few more applications her eyes closed slowly and she fell asleep.
“Oh, sleep, O gentle sleep, I thought gratefully, Nature’s soft nurse!
“After a short while, however, the little slumberer awoke fretfully and cried out, ‘I want them rags that wells my legs!’
“And so the little girl of the Australian bushland unknowingly spoke her approval of a treatment that was one day to become the subject of much heated debate among the learned members of the medical world.”
I love that story. It was the birth of the Kenny method, which, as I said above, prevented permanent paralysis in 87% of the patients treated with it. I love it especially because it illustrates the very same credo of innovation mentioned in Need, Speed, and Greed : address the patient’s need. What she observed from the “symptoms presenting themselves” was muscle spasm, and she experimented with different applications of heat until she got it right. The standard treatment of the time was to immobilize the affected muscles, usually by braces, but all that did was ensure that the paralysis was permanent. Of course, Sister Kenny is a little disingenuous here and in the rest of her book in saying that the treatment was painless. Alan Alda, one of the more famous people who received her treatment, said it was incredibly painful. So did one of the former patients interviewed in this history video, which, incidentally, won a prize for the middle schooler who put it together. But both of them say that her method is the reason they can walk today.
Sister Kenny continued to use her method on polio patients, but despite her phenomenal results, she met with resistance. The medical establishment did not believe that polio caused muscle spasm, but muscle weakness, which I assume is why they felt the affected limbs had to be fortified with braces. But Sister Kenny knew she was right and that people’s lives were at stake, so she fought. I mentioned her sense of humor; well, she could also have an acid tongue. But she wasn’t completely without support. Some doctors took her side, as did grateful parents and patients. Eventually, the Mayo Clinic gave her a clinic of her own. It is still an active physiotherapy center today.
As I said at the beginning, Sister Kenny was a celebrity in her time, and what shows celebrity status more than a Hollywood biopic? Sister Kenny’s biopic was made in 1946, and I expect it’s good; she was allowed input on all the medical aspects of the film. The scriptwriter had an afterword in my copy of the book, and it was excellent. I’m looking forward to getting hold of it, but for now, here’s a scene.
Sister Kenny died in 1952, three years before the vaccine was released to the public. Some might say it was a shame she didn’t live to see it, but who knows? Perhaps she became the advocate for it in Heaven. She sure was one heck of an advocate for polio victims on earth.
October 1, 2020
Read this with my oldest for school. It was a great account of her life, writing wasn’t all that fabulous.
October 3, 2017
Throughout the whole book Kenny did nothing but praise herself and had an "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude. While this was technically true, it was poor form. She also repeated herself constantly.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews