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BOOK REVIEW ON SISTER KENNY AND THE HISTORY OF POLIO THERAPY

Sunday, 1st of June 2014

SISTER KENNY: A STUDY IN INFLEXIBILITY

 

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Original Text

Ed Parker

Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine

Naomi Rogers

OUP USA, 2013

Pp 400. £22·99 ISBN-978-0195380590

In April, 1940, an Australian bush nurse named Elizabeth Kenny stepped off a boat in New York. Her aim was to revolutionise the treatment of polio, a debilitating disease that had risen from nowhere in the early 20th century to cause much-feared epidemics. Bold, uncompromising, and armed with a razor-sharp wit, Kenny would soon become the subject of scientific controversy, public adulation, and a Hollywood film.

In Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine, Naomi Rogers charts her battle to see her techniques and theories adopted by Americas medical community. As the title suggests, Kenny is hardly met with open arms: she soon finds herself sparring with physicians, physical therapists, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and the American Medical Association. But she certainly holds her own.

From the outset, Rogers uses first-hand accounts to weave an intricate narrative of her time in America. This strategy is effective; through the words of her proponents, critics, and the nurse herself, Rogers effectively draws you into her “life of passionate outrage”. Staunchly opposed to the orthodox treatment of extended immobilisation, Kenny advocated treatment that included the use of hot packs and muscle exercises, and encouraged patients to take ownership of their disease, with even toddlers expected to be “active and knowledgeable participants in muscle exercises”. Although the Kenny method soon became widely adopted, owing as much to popular demand as professional acceptance, her theories on the pathology of polio, which she saw not simply as a disease of the CNS, but also of muscles and skin, never gained the credibility she coveted.

Rogers does not shy away from her less flattering qualities; this is not the story of a forgotten heroine. Prone to viewing any query as an attack, and threatening to return to Australia at the slightest hint of disapproval, Kenny left no room for debate. This stubbornness is somewhat ironic in view of her grievances with the inflexible medical establishment, and she is ultimately depicted as a frustrated figure, all too aware of her fragile legacy.

Polio Wars is about more than Sister Kenny. Through her story, Rogers explores the disability politics of the era, the rise of medical populism after World War 2, and the deep-seated patriarchy of American medicine in the mid-20th century. Amid a crowded literature on polios history, Polio Wars provides not only a balanced and meticulously researched study of one of the topics more contentious figures, but a subtle critique of Americas “golden age” of medicine.