Person

Kenny, Elizabeth (1880 - 1952)

Born
20 September 1880
Warialda, New South Wales, Australia
Died
30 November 1952
Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Occupation
Nurse and Health administrator

Summary

Elizabeth Kenny developed a new treatment for poliomyelitis during the 1930s and established clinics in Brisbane with the backing of the State government but opposition from the medical profession. In 1940 she moved to the USA where her methods were widely acclaimed.

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Details

Chronology

1910 - 1915
Career position - Self-appointed Nurse working from the family home in the Darling Downs area of Queensland
1915 - 1917
Military service - Staff Nurse with the Australian Army Nursing Service, serving on troopships bringing wounded home to Australia
1917 - 1919
Career position - Sister in the Australian Army Nursing Service
1919 - 1932
Career position - Returned to her home nursing practice
1932
Career position - Established a backyard clinic in Townsville to treat long-term poliomyelitis victims and cerebral palsy patients
1940
Career position - Travelled to the USA with an introduction to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
1942
Career position - The Sister Kenny Institute was established in Minneapolis, USA
1951
Life event - Retired to Toowoomba, Queensland

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Fryer Library and Department of Special Collections, University of Queensland

  • Elizabeth Kenny - Records, 1930 - 1952; Fryer Library and Department of Special Collections, University of Queensland. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

  • McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Books

  • Alexander, Wade, Sister Elizabeth Kenny: maverick heroine of the polio treatment controversy (Rockhampton, Qld: Central Queensland University Press, 2002), 227 pp. Details
  • Cohn, Victor, Sister Kenny: the woman who challenged the doctors (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975), 302 pp. Details
  • Highley, Kerry, Dancing in my dreams: confronting the spectre of polio (Clayton, Vic.: Monash University Publishing, 2016), 262 pp. Details
  • Hildon, Allan, Sister Kenny: the woman who invented herself (Stowmarket, Suffolk: Allan Hildon, 2020), 162 pp. Details
  • Kenny, Elizabeth, My battle and victory: history of the discovery of poliomyelitis as systemic disease (London: R. Hale, 1955), 124 pp. Details
  • Rogers, Naomi, The polio wars: Sister Elizabeth Kenny and the golden age of American medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 488 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Lack, Clem, 'Sister Kenny and infantile paralysis' in Three decades of Queensland political history 1919 - 1962, Lack, Clem, ed. (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1962), pp. 32-3. Details
  • Mackie, Sue, 'Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952) nurse' in 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Heather Radi, ed. (Sydney: Women's Redress Press Inc, 1988). Details
  • Patrick, Ross, 'Kenny, Elizabeth (1880-1952), nurse' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), pp. 570-571. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090570b.htm. Details
  • Rogers, Naomi, 'What is scientific evidence? Sister Kenny, American doctors and polio therapy, 1940 - 1952' in "Outpost medicine": Australasian studies on the history of medicine: Third National Conference of the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, Hobart, February 1993, Atkins, Susanne, Kirkby, Kenneth, Thomson, Philip and Pearn, John, eds (Hobart: University of Tasmania and the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, 1994), pp. 245-55. Details
  • Rogers, Naomi, 'Elizabeth Kenny, 1880-1952' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details

Edited Books

  • Radi, H. ed., 200 Australian Women: a Redress Anthology (Sydney: Women's Redress Press Inc, 1988), 268 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Pearn, John, 'Sister Elizabeth Kenny 1880 - 1952: her Queensland memorials', Queensland history journal, 24 (4) (2020), 410-26. Details
  • Wilson, J., 'Sister Elizabeth's trial by Royal Commission', History of Nursing Society Journal, 4 (2) (1992), 91-9. Details

Resources

See also

  • Alexander, John A. ed., Who's who in Australia 1944 (Melbourne, Victoria: The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, 1944), 906 pp. Details

McCarthy, G.J.

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 15 September 2004

EOAS ID: biogs/P001081b.htm

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