Polio Wars (109 page)

277.
Jean Macnamara “The Prevention of Crippling Following Poliomyelitis”
Medical Journal of Australia
(July 5 1952) 2: 4–8.

278.
H. J. Seddon [review of] “[Kenny]
And They Shall Walk
”
British Medical Journal
(April 12 1952) 1: 802–803.

279.
J. R. S. Lahz, letter to editor,
British Medical Journal
(November 8 1952) 2: 1047.

280.
Lancelot H.F. Walton, letter to editor,
British Medical Journal
(May 17 1952) 1: 1082.

281.
Kenny
My Battle and Victory
, 11, 89.

282.
Kenny “Report to the Board of the Directors of the Sister Elizabeth Kenny Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota,” February 27 1950, Board of Directors, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Dayton, March 14 1950, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K.

283.
Alexander
Maverick
, 186–187.

284.
“Sister Kenny Sees Polio Beaten”
New York Times
September 9 1952.

285.
“Move on Kenny Training Centre For Australia.”

286.
Extract of Page speech, in response to question from Mr. C. Morgan, October 16 1951, #707/9/A, Series A462, Australian Archives, AA-ACT; Kenny to Dear Mr. [Charles] Morgan, November 7 1951, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; “Move on Kenny Training Centre For Australia”; Kenny to Dear Mr. Kline, October 19 1951. Page had visited Europe and North America from July to September 1951. He was made Minister for Health in 1949 and held this post until 1956 when he retired to the backbench; see Carl Bridge “Page, Sir Earle Christmas Grafton (1880–1961),”
Australian Dictionary of Biography
, Australian National University,
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/page-sir-earle-christmas-grafton-7941/text13821
, accessed July 29 2012.

287.
“Move on Kenny Training Centre For Australia”; A. J. Metcalfe to Secretary, Prime Minister's Department [A. S. Brown] Memorandum Re: ‘Sister' Kenny and Poliomyelitis, October 27 1952, #707/9/A, Series A462, AA-ACT; see also Mrs. R. G. Baldock to Sir [Prime Minister], October 6 1952, #707/9/A, Series A462, AA-ACT; Mrs. R. G. Baldock to Dear Sir [Prime Minister], September 15 1952, #707/9/A, Series A462, AA-ACT.

288.
A. S. Brown to Dear Mrs. Baldock, November 7 1952, #707/9/A, Series A462, AA-ACT. Baldock “will not accept any evidence that in any way contradicts the Kenny concept of poliomyelitis and the value of her methods of treatment” so that “any further evidence supplied would in all probability provoke further denial”; A. J. Metcalfe to Secretary, Prime Minister's Department [A. S. Brown] Memorandum Re: ‘Sister' Kenny and Poliomyelitis, December 3 1952, #707/9/A, Series A462, AA-ACT. Note that Page also wrote to Sterne asking that his name not be associated with any of the “controversy” around Kenny; Page to Sterne, October 7 1952, cited in Alexander
Maverick
, 188.

289.
Kenny to Dear Friend [George Crosby], September 29 1952, Henry Papers, MHS.

290.
Kenny to Gentlemen [Nye, Arden, Pye, Lee, Wilkinson, and Fryberg], [September 1952], Wilson Collection; Kenny, letter to editor,
Toowoomba Chronicle
October 30 1952, Wilson Collection; Minutes, Executive Committee of the International Organisation for Combating Poliomyelitis, Held October 15 1952.

291.
Kenny to Dear Doctor Judd, August 12 1952, Minnesota-Hospitals, 1944–1961, Sister Kenny Institute, Judd Papers, MHS; Judd to Dear Sister Kenny, August 15 1952, Box 2, Ke-Kn, Jungeblut Papers, NLM; Kenny to Dear Mr. Kline, October 19 1951; Kenny to Dear Dr. Payne, September 10 1952, Minnesota-Hospitals, 1944–1961, Sister Kenny Institute, Judd Papers, MHS; Payne to Dear Miss Kenny, September 30 1952, Minnesota-Hospitals, 1944–1961, Sister Kenny Institute, Judd Papers, MHS.

292.
Kenny to Dear Friend [James Henry], November 13 1952, Henry Papers, MHS.

293.
Ibid.

294.
“Sister Kenney [sic] Fights For Life”
Atlanta Daily World
November 25 1952; “Sister Kenny's Condition Takes Turn for Worse”
Los Angeles Times
November 29 1952. Some of her first polio patients waited outside her house for the final bulletin announcing the death; “Sister Kenny Dies In Her Sleep at 66”
New York Times
November 30 1952.

295.
“Sister Kenny Musters a Smile for America”
Minneapolis Star
November 25 1952; “Sister Kenney [sic] Fights For Life”; “Sister Kenny Resigned to Die Before She Lapsed Into Coma”
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
November 30 1952; “Sister Kenny's Life Had Peaceful Close”
Toowoomba Chronicle
December 1 1952.

296.
“Doctor Wires Advice To Help Sister Kenny”
Hartford Courant
November 27 1952; “Sister Kenny Resigned to Die Before She Lapsed Into Coma”; “Sister Kenny Dies In Her Sleep at 66”; “Sister Kenny's Life Had Peaceful Close”; “Sister Kenny Treated From N.Y. By Phone”
Chicago Daily Tribune
November 26 1952; “Sister Kenny Unconscious; Heart Weakens”
Chicago Daily Tribune
November 29 1952; Waldemar Kaempffert “Science in Review: Trypsin, Like That Flown to Australia for Sister Kenny, Dissolves Some Blood Clots”
New York Times
December 7 1952; “Sister Kenny's Condition Takes Turn for Worse”; “Sister Kenny, Polio Fighter, Critically Ill”
Washington Post
November 24 1952.

297.
“Sister Kenny Resigned to Die Before She Lapsed Into Coma”; “Pneumonia Hastens Death of Polio Nurse”
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune
November 30 1952; “Sister Kenny's Life Had Peaceful Close.”

298.
“Sister Kenny's Life Had Peaceful Close”; “Sister Kenny's Services Held: Church Packed”
Chicago Daily Tribune
December 1 1952; “Sister Kenny Dies: Fought Polio 43 Years”
Chicago Daily Tribune
November 30 1952; “Sister Kenny, 66, Dies at Home in Australia”
Los Angeles Times
November 30 1952; Walter Johnson “Sister Kenny Fought Doctors to Win Battle Against Polio”
Minneapolis Star
December 1 1952.

299.
“Sister Kenny Rites Held in Australia”
New York Times
December 1 1952; “Last Honor Paid to Sister Kenny”
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
December 1 1952; “Sister Kenny's Services Held; Church Packed”
Chicago Daily Tribune
December 1 1952; “Town Will Watch Over Her Grave”
Brisbane Courier Mail
[1952], Kenny Collection, Box 18, Fryer Library; “Sister Kenny Rites To Be Held Today”
Hartford Courant
December 1 1952.

300.
“Town Will Watch Over Her Grave”; “At Rest: Under the Gums”
Brisbane Courier-Mail
December 2 1952; “Last Honor Paid To Sister Kenny”; “Sister Kenny Rites Held in Australia.”

301.
“Last Honor Paid To Sister Kenny”; “Sister Kenny Rites Held in Australia”; “At Rest: Under the Gums”; “Town Will Watch Over Her Grave.”

302.
“Last Honor Paid To Sister Kenny”; “Sister Kenny Rites Held in Australia”; “At Rest: Under the Gums.”

303.
“At Rest: Under the Gums.”

304.
“Transition: Sister Elizabeth Kenny”
Newsweek
(December 8 1952) 40: 67.

305.
“Sister Kenny Dies In Her Sleep at 66.”

306.
“Sister Kenny”
Lancet
(December 6 1952) 260: 1123; “Elizabeth Kenny”
Medical Journal of Australia
(January 17 1953) 1: 85; “Sister Kenny”
British Medical Journal
(December 6 1952) 2: 1262; “Sister Kenny: H. J. Seddon”
British Medical Journal
(December 6 1952) 2: 1262–1263; “Death of Sister Kenny”
JAMA
(January 3 1953) 151: 53.

307.
“Sister Kenny Is Dead”
Sydney Morning Herald
December 2 1952, Wilson Collection.

308.
“Many Pay Tribute to a ‘Great Australian' ”
Toowoomba Chronicle
December 1 1952; “Sister Kenny Is Dead.”

309.
“Many Pay Tribute to a ‘Great Australian.' ”

310.
“Was A Great Influence”
Brisbane Courier-Mail
December 1 1952.

311.
“Many Pay Tribute to a ‘Great Australian.' ”

312.
“Actress Praises Sister Kenny” [unnamed newspaper], [December 1952], Clippings, MHS-K.

313.
Johnson “Australian Nurse Is Dead”; Victor Cohn “Revolutionary Polio Treatment Sister Kenny Gift to U.S. Medicine”
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune
November 30 1952.

314.
“Sister Kenny Honored”
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
December 17 1952.

315.
“Sister Kenny Memorial Conducted”
Los Angeles Times
December 3 1952; “History of the Sister Elizabeth Kenny Foundation of Southern California, Inc.” [1955], Kenny Collection, Box 1, Fryer Library.

316.
“Sister Kenny Awards Presented to Hospital”
Los Angeles Times
January 19 1956; “Rosalind Russell Gives Tiny Patient Welcome”
Los Angeles Times
January 29 1956.

On medicine, race and the Cold War see Mary L. Dudziak
Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Stephan E. Mawdsley “ ‘Dancing on Eggs': Charles H. Bynum, Racial Politics, and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1938–1954”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
(2010) 84: 217–247; David M. Oshinsky
Polio: An American Story
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Robert N. Proctor
The Nazi War on Cancer
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Naomi Rogers “Race and the Politics of Polio: Warm Springs, Tuskegee and the March of Dimes”
American Journal of Public Health
(2007) 97: 2–13; Kevin Starr
Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940–1950
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Jessica Wang
American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the Cold War
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

On gender and the Cold War see Mary C. Brennan
Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace: Conservative Women and the Crusade Against Community
(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008); Linda Eisenmann
Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Helen Laville
Cold War Women: The International Activities of American Women's Organisations
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002); Elaine Tyler May
Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
(New York: Basic Books, 1988); Lisa McGirr
Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Joanne Meyerowitz ed.
Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994).

IN 1954 THE
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) sponsored the world's largest clinical trial and in 1955 the Salk polio vaccine became available to the public. With the widespread use of the vaccine during the late 1950s the clinical care of polio no longer seemed important. Fewer children were contracting polio and those who were had shorter hospital stays. Reflecting these changes the Baltimore Children's Hospital-School, where Florence and Henry Kendall still worked, was renamed the Children's Hospital in 1958; its NFIP-funded iron lung center had already closed a few years earlier.
¹

The Salk vaccine's victory over polio excited people across the globe, and Americans felt special pride as “it was their vaccine, ordered and paid for by them.”
²
Elizabeth Kenny, a central character in the polio wars, was quickly—and, I think, not accidentally—forgotten. The story of how polio had been conquered was well crafted by the NFIP's publicity department and erased almost all previous debates in polio history, especially those around therapy. When, for example, Herbert Levine, a little known Illinois physician, tried to memorialize Kenny and the Centralia Kenny clinic, the NFIP quietly discouraged leading science reporters from reviewing his 1954 book
I Knew Sister Kenny: The Story of a Great Lady and Little People
. Kenny had been, Levine reminded readers, “a world-wide controversial figure [who had]… re-awakened and re-stimulated medical science to continue its research against this dreaded disease.” Although the book was reviewed in regional papers like the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
and the
Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph
and received blurbs from Ed Sullivan and Hedda Hopper, it disappeared from sight. It was not enough, Levine discovered, to have known Kenny.
³
By comparison, in 1958 the NFIP used all of its media resources to highlight its organization of a special ceremony at Warm Springs to honor 17 polio heroes in a new Polio Hall of Fame. The NFIP chose to feature twentieth-century scientists whose NFIP-funded work had led to the polio vaccine, along with Roosevelt, O'Connor, and 3 nineteenth-century physicians.
⁴
There were
no modern orthopedists or physical medicine experts, much less any physical therapists or nurses.