Polio Wars (14 page)

96.
C. H. Scott to M. A. LeHand [forwarded to Basil O'Connor], February 2 1940 [abstract] FDR-PPF-4885 (Comm. Celeb. President's Birthday Cross-Refs 1939–1940), FDR Papers; also C. H Scott to Wilson Comptons [abstract], [January] 1940, FDR-OF-1930, Infantile Paralysis 1934–1942, Box 1, FDR Papers; these inquiries were also sent to Eleanor Roosevelt.

97.
O'Connor graduated from Dartmouth in 1912 and from Harvard Law School in 1915. While his dapper clothes and luxurious lifestyle were at times attacked as signs of “excessive fund raising and egregious razzle-dazzle,” O'Connor boasted that he received no salary from
the NFIP and that his insistence “on traveling de luxe” was a deliberate tactic designed to show everyone that the NFIP was “something special”; Paul
A History
, 308–309; Alden Whitman “Basil O'Connor, Polio Crusader, Died”
New York Times
March 10 1972; Carter
The Gentle Legions
, 100–106; Timothy Takaro “The Man in the Middle”
Dartmouth Medicine
(Fall 2004) 29: 52–57.

98.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 211; see also O'Connor's recollection that he and Gudakunst had listened to her for 3 hours, [Cohn interview with] Basil O'Connor, June 20 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.

99.
[Cohn interview with] Basil O'Connor, June 20 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.

100.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 212, 213.

101.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 212. For a slightly different version of the Chicago visit in which Fishbein suggested that O'Connor send Kenny to Chicago so that Harry Mock, head of the AMA's Council on Physical Therapy, could interview her see Morris Fishbein
Morris Fishbein, M.D. An Autobiography
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1969), 230–231. According to Kenny she had “personally interviewed” Mr. Carter and Dr. Coulter “both of whom informed me no material was available in Chicago;” Kenny to Dear Dr. Gudakunst, June 10 1940, Public Relations, Kenny Files, March of Dimes (hereafter MOD-K); see also Kenny to Dear Mr. Chuter, May 28 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA.

102.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 212–213; Paul
A History
, 225–231; The same argument was used to dismiss work by Australian virologists Francis Macfarlane Burnet and Jean Macnamara, who had published crucial but largely ignored research in 1931 showing more than one type of polio virus; Paul A
History,
239.

103.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 213. The therapists were probably Gertrude Beard and her assistant Elizabeth Wood.

104.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 213–214, 218.

105.
H. J. Wilkinson to M. Henderson, March 8 1940, Inv. Physicians Letter, 1939–1940, MHS-K; see also Geoffrey Kenny “Wilkinson, Herbert John (1891–1963)” in
Australian Dictionary of Biography
(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), 16: 547–548; Wilkinson “Foreword” Kenny
Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia
, i–xvii. He had visited Europe and the United States as a Rockefeller Fellow a decade earlier.

106.
Melvin S. Henderson to Dear Dr. Wilkinson, April 9 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA. Henderson told Wilkinson he had spoken to Cole who was in charge of Gillette Hospital for Crippled Children, which was used by the University for teaching purposes and that “Dr. Cole would like very much to have Sister Kenny visit Gillette Hospital.”

107.
Frank H. Krusen
Physical Medicine: The Employment of Physical Agents for Diagnosis and Therapy
(Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders Company, 1941); Krusen and John Kolmer
Light Therapy
(New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1933); Krusen
Physical Therapy in Arthritis
(New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1937). See also Kenny to Dear Mr. Chuter, May 28 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA. A tuberculosis survivor, Frank Hammond Krusen (1898–1973) (Jefferson MD) had set up the first physical therapy training program for physicians at Temple University Hospital in 1929. At the Mayo Clinic he directed the nation's first 3-year physical medicine residency program. He had written physical therapy textbooks for physicians and nurses and also directed the Mayo Clinic's physical therapy training program, which had graduated its first class only a year earlier; “Dr. Frank Krusen of Mayo Clinic, 75”
New York Times
September 18 1973; Glenn Gritzer and Arnold Arluke
The Making of
Rehabilitation: The Political Economy of Medical Specialization, 1890–1980
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 87–88. Krusen had coined the term “Physiatrist” as a way of distinguishing physician specialists from physical therapists; G. Keith Stillwell “In Memoriam: Frank H. Krusen, M.D. 1898–1973”
Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
(November 1973) 54: 493–495.

108.
Krusen, “Observations on the Kenny Treatment of Poliomyelitis”
Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic
(August 12 1942) 17: 450; [Cohn interview with] Frank Krusen, March 24 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.

109.
Henderson had given Kenny an introduction to Wallace Cole, head of orthopedic surgery at the University of Minnesota; Melvin S. Henderson to Dear Dr. Wilkinson, April 9 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA.

110.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 217–220; see also Kenny to Dear Mr. President, September 2 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

111.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 220–221; Kenny “Paper Read at the Northwestern Pediatric Conference, Nov. 14, 1940, Saint Paul University Club, “Kendall Collection”; “Lecture given at Minneapolis General Hospital, August 12 1940” in Kenny
Treatment of Infantile Paralysis
, 116.

112.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 220–221.

113.
Krusen “Observations,” 450. See also Krusen on Knapp as “the most patient soul that ever lived”; [Cohn interview with] Frank Krusen, March 24 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K. Miland Knapp had received his MD from the University of Minnesota in 1929 and became interested in physical medicine but had struggled unsuccessfully to set up a specialty practice limited to physical therapy in Chicago, despite support from John Coulter, until he had returned to Minneapolis where he was appointed as the head of a physical therapy department at the Minnesota General Hospital; [Cohn third interview with] Miland Knapp, August 24 1963, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; see also Russell J. N. Dean
Rehabilitation for America's Disabled
(New York: Hastings House, 1972), 56–58.

114.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 221; Alexander
Maverick
, 118–119; Krusen “Observations,” 451; [Cohn third interview with] Miland Knapp, August 24 1963, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.

115.
For a suggestion about Midwestern openness see Alexander
Maverick
, 128–129.

116.
Kenny “Paper Read at the Northwestern Pediatric Conference, Nov. 14, 1940, Saint Paul University Club.”

117.
Mary Pohl, interview with Naomi Rogers, August 21 2003, Tallahassee, Florida; “John F. Pohl” [Biographical Information] in Supplementary Data, Committee to Review Request of Elizabeth Kenny Institute to National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis: General, Medical Sciences, 1944, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. He also visited the Manchester Royal Infirmary and then spent a year as a resident in neurosurgery at the Boston Children's Hospital.

118.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 225–227; Henry M. Haverstock To Whom It May Concern, September 4 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K. Haverstock later remembered his parents asking her to stop reading her testimonials and begin her examination; Gould
Summer Plague
, 96–98; Alexander
Maverick
, 118–119.

119.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 225–227.

120.
Kenny
Treatment of Infantile Paralysis
, 270.

121.
O'Connor to Cole, September 10 1940, FDR-OF-1930, Infantile Paralysis 1934–1942 Box 1, FDR Papers.

122.
Kline “The Most Unforgettable Character I've Met,” 203–208; see also Harold S. Diehl “Summary of the Relationship of the Medical School of the University of Minnesota to the work of Sister Elizabeth Kenny” May 1944, Public Relations, MOD-K.

123.
Kenny with Ostenso
And They Shall Walk
, 223.

124.
Chuter to Dear Sister Kenny, July 15 1940, Wilson Collection.

125.
Evelyn P. Holmberg to Dear Sir [O'Connor], November 13 1940, Public Relations, MOD--K.

126.
Kenny “Report of Activities: June, 1940–1943,” FDR-OF-5188, Sister Elizabeth Kenny Institute, 1940–1944, FDR Papers.

127.
Robert Gurney in Edmund J. Sass with George Gottfried and Anthony Sorem eds.
Polio's Legacy: An Oral History
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), 25.

128.
See Alexander
Maverick,
45–50.

129.
Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 21 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.

130.
Kenny to Dear Sir [O'Connor], June 24 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K; on the delay between May and September see Diehl “Summary.”

131.
Alexander
Maverick
, 85–87, 92; [Cohn interview with] Mary and Stuart McCracken, April 14 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Cohn
Sister Kenny
, 69–70. Mary Moore Kenny died on December 20 1937 when she was 93; [Chris Sharpe] Interview with Mary Stewart Kenny McCracken and Stuart McCracken, July 3–4 1998, Chris Sharpe Collection, in author's possession.

132.
Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 21 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K. See also Abe Altrowitz “Under Your Hat”
Minneapolis Tribune
November 1943, Box 19, Sister Kenny Institute 1938–1948, Myers Papers, UMN-ASC.

133.
Henry W. Haverstock to Senator Henrik Shipstead, July 3 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT. Shipstead (1881–1960), a dentist, was elected first to the Senate as a member of the Farmer-Labor Party in 1922, and later in 1940 as a Republican. Kenny also wrote directly to Richard Casey at the Australian legation, suggesting the Australian government provide $150 a month to “assist and promote a friendly feeling so much to be desired in the present troublesome times” and “earn the gratitude of the people of the United States of America forever”; Kenny to Australian Legation, July 6 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT; see also Henrik Shipstead to Australian Legation, July 6 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT. With the knowledge he had gained from earlier inquiries, Casey was not sympathetic. He reminded Kenny and Shipstead that Kenny's visit “was not sponsored in any way” by the Australian government. He further pointed out that during the European war “the need at the present time [was] to conserve as many dollars as possible in this country”; R. G. Casey to Kenny, July 12 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT; R. G. Casey to Shipstead, July 12 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT.

134.
Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, June 21 1943, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K; Kenny to Gentleman, July 3 1940, Series A981/1, United States 148, AA-ACT.

135.
Arthur D. Reynolds to Keith Morgan, September 5 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

136.
O'Connor to Reynolds, September 17 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

137.
Reynolds to O'Connor, November 29 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K. Note that she told reporters in 1940 that her 20 years of effort had been “entirely gratuitous”; “Australia Brings American Medicine New Method of Treatment Infantile Paralysis”
Los Angeles Times
April 16 1940; see also “She reports that she is doing this work free of charge in the interest of science”; Henry M. Haverstock To Whom It May Concern, September 4 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

138.
Kenny to Dear Mr. President, September 2 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Roosevelt, September 2 1940 [abstract] FDR-OF-5188, Sister Elizabeth Kenny Institute 1940–1944, FDR Papers; see also Henry M. Haverstock To Whom It May Concern, September 4 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

139.
Kenny to Dear Mr. President, September 6 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Roosevelt, September 6 1940 [abstract], FDR-OF-5188, Sister Elizabeth Kenny Institute 1940–1944, FDR Papers.

140.
O'Connor to Cole, September 10 1940, FDR-OF-1930, Infantile Paralysis 1934–1942, Box 1, FDR Papers.

141.
Cole to Kenny, September 9 1940, Cole, Dr. Wallace H. 1940–1947, MHS-K. Between August and November 1940 Kenny received $180 a month; Diehl to My Dear Sister Kenny, April 13 1944, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.

142.
Kenny
And They Shall Walk
, 254.

143.
Kenny to Dear Dr. Cole, September 12 1940, Public Relations, MOD-K.

144.
Kenny to Dear Mr. Chuter, May 28 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA; see also Kenny to Dear Mr. Chuter, November 15 1940, Home Secretary's Office, Special Batches, Kenny Clinics, 1941–1949, A/31753, QSA.

145.
Diehl, “Summary.”

146.
Miland E. Knapp to Dear Doctor Diehl, March 10 1944, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging] Am 15.8, Folder 1, UMN-ASC; Wallace H. Cole and Miland E. Knapp “The Kenny Treatment of Infantile Paralysis: A Preliminary Report”
Journal of the American Medical Association
(June 7 1941) 116: 2577–2580; and see Wallace H. Cole, John F. Pohl, and Miland E. Knapp “The Kenny Method of Treatment for Infantile Paralysis”
Archives of Physical Therapy
(1942) 23: 399–418, also published as a separate pamphlet by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (Publication No. 40, 1942); see also Diehl “Summary.”