Elizabeth Kenny Quotes


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.


Citations

Kenny, Elizabeth, and Martha Ostenso. And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny. Dodd, Mead, 1943.

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Elizabeth Kenny
Elizabeth Kenny
  • Born: September 20, 1880
  • Died: November 30, 1952
  • Nationality: Australian
  • Profession: Nurse

Sister Elizabeth Kenny was a self-trained Australian bush nurse who developed a new approach for treating victims of poliomyelitis, which was controversial at the time. Her method, which she promoted internationally while working in Australia, Europe and the United States, differed from the then conventional medical practice which called for placing affected limbs in plaster casts. Instead Kenny applied hot compresses to affected parts of patients' bodies followed by passive movement of those areas to reduce what she called "Spasm". Kenny's principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy, or physiotherapy.