SISTER KENNY TREATMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26641, 11 December 1947, Page 6

SISTER KENNY TREATMENT

INVESTIGATION BY EXPERTS SUGGESTED Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, Dec. 10. Declaring that the medical profession has too often been slow to adapt itself to new ideas which have originated outside its own ranks, the official organ of the New Zealand Labour Party in an editorial in this week’s issue asks that consideration should be given to the suggestion of Sister Elizabeth Kenny that a conference of medical and health experts should be held in Auckland when she arrives to consider whether any positive contribution can be made by the Kenny treatment during the present infantile paralysis epidemic. “It is a regrettable fact that the medical profession has too often been slow to adapt itself to new ideas which have originated outside its own ranks,” says the journal. “The Kenny treatment is only one instance of new methods which have been apposed by the orthodox practitioners even after they have produced results which appear to be entirely convincing. “What the public needs to feel perfectly satisfied about is that no form of treatment which can ease suffering is ignored simply because the medical profession did not discover it itself. Doubtless if the conference suggeted by Sister Kenny is held there will be opposition from the BritisTi Medical Association, but that should not be sufficient grounds for refusing to allow the Kenny treatment to; be tried out in this country in the early stages of the disease instead of permitting it to be tried only after the orthodox practitioners have finished with the patients.”