INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1940, Page 8

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

SISTER KENNY’S TREATMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) . AUCKLAND, April 7. A woman whose work in the study and treatment of infantile paralysis is now well known. Sister E. Kenny. Queensland, passed through Auckland in the Monterey on her way to the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, United States, on behalf of the Queensland Government. The Premier of Queensland. Mr Forgan Smith, has written to the president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in New York, stating that, in the opinion of his Government, Sister Kenny’s treatment is a notable contribution to the cause of humanity. Though Sister Kenny has been working on her treatment for 25 years, it was not made public till seven years ago. At present it is practised only in Queensland, and at the Royal North Shore Hospital. New South Wales. She has worked for many years in a purely honorary capacity to bring the benefits of her discoveries and her treatment to sufferers among the people Of Queensland. “The recognised modern treatment, according to the evidence collected by the Royal Commission of Investigation into the treatment of Paralysis appointed by the Queensland Government, is immobilisation and reeducation," Sister Kenny said when interviewed. "This evidence was collected from all the English-speaking clinics throughout the world. My method was first the complete abandonment of immobilisation, which is the placing of the patient in. splints. Secondly, there is the treatment of symptoms, which hitherto had been unnoticed. Immobilisation prevents these symptoms from becoming apparent, while they exist, satisfactory reeducation is impossible. So opposed were my views to the generally accepted orthodox ideas, that it is only within the last nine months that acute cases have been submitted for treatment. Medical men have now agreed that the treatment has introduced an original conception of the disease.