Elizabeth Kenny
Elizabeth Kenny
Elizabeth Kennywas an unaccredited Australian nurse who promoted a controversial new approach to the treatment of poliomyelitis. Her findings ran counter to conventional medical wisdom; they demonstrated the need to exercise muscles affected by polio instead of immobilising them. Kenny's principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy, or physiotherapy...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth20 September 1886
CityWarialda, Australia
CountryAustralia
A measure of victory has been won, and honors have been bestowed in token thereof. But honours fade or are forgotten, and monuments crumble into dust. It is the battle itself that matters - and the battle must go on.
He looked at the book, took my name, and consulted his records. Then he informed me I had been lost at sea and was dead. Under the circumstances, he could not possibly give me any money... Even the fact that he was dealing with someone who had been dead for several days failed to awaken interest in his official heart.
The American doctor possesses a combination of conservatism and... an eagerness to know what it is really all about, in order that he may not be the one left behind if there is something to it.
As a girl my temper often got out of bounds. But one day when I became angry at a friend over some trivial matter, my mother said to me, Elizabeth, anyone who angers you conquers you.
I'd like to live every moment of my life, but not a moment after.
His response was remarkable for its irrelevance, if for nothing else.
I have a message to give to the world, and I shall not be thwarted.
At first, I was called a quack, a charlatan, and worse, year after year, in Australia, England and the United States, by men who simply refused to believe that a nurse from 'the bush' could devise a treatment which succeeded where they had failed.
'O sleep, O gentle sleep,' I thought gratefully, 'Nature's soft nurse!'
In the history of medicine, it is not always the great scientist or the learned doctor who goes forward to discover new fields, new avenues, new ideas.
I came to America to teach my method - not to enter a research experiment.
I spent more time on dark ships in danger zones than any other woman in the world.
I do not want medical men to discuss whether or not my work is valuable, because I know what it will do. I want them to tell me how best this new knowledge of rapidly restoring paralysed people to health and strength can be applied where it is needed.
The American doctor, in my opinion, possesses a combination of conservatism and that other quality which has put the United States in the forefront in almost every department of science - that is, an eagerness to know what it is really all about in order that he may not be the one left behind if there is something to it.