SISTER KENNY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 417, 20 June 1947, Page 30

SISTER KENNY

(RKO Radio)

ERE is one example of one way in which the cinema, in the ‘name of entertainment, can be used to sell an idea. It is a very striking and in some

ways a rather disturbing example. The idea expounded here with almost fanatical fervour is that the Kenny method of treating infantile paralysis is the only effective treatment of the disease and that Sister Elizabeth Kenny herself has long been a_ consistently-misunderstood and even much-maligned figure in the world of medicine. I have nothing but admiration for Rosalind Russell’s actual performarice as the redoubtable heroine, developing from an, idealistic young nurse in the Australian bush to a sharp-tongued, rather cantankerous crusader of 59. I admire also the technical skill of the director (Dudley Nicholls) in creating out of the heartbreaking subject of infantile paralysis a dramatic screen biography which many people will find absorbing and convincing. Yet just because many people will be convinced and just because the subject is a heartbreaking one, deeply concerning parents all over the world, I think that Hollywood should not, have tackled it at all, and certainly not with the partisan zeal that is shown here by all concerned (and especially by Miss Russell, who is a director of the

Kenny Foundation in Minneapolis). It ; is wrong, and possibly dangerous, for , the cinema to take what is still a matter for fierce argument and ‘present it emotionally as incontroveriible fact. The only real concessions which the film makes to doctors as a body is that they are in earnest and well meaning, though stupid and wilfully obstinate. Well, the organised medical profession can probably look after itself, but for the sake of others who may be inclined to regard Sister Kenny as gospel, I think it may® » be as well to quote Time's analysis of the film’s major distortions, implied rather than explicity stated: (1) Most doétors and medical ofganisations pigheadedly denounce Sister Kenny and reject her technique. The facts: prac- , tically all orthopedists acknowledge medicine’s debt to Sister Kenny and employ her treatment in whole or in part. The American National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis alone has spent two million dollars forthe edvancement of physical therapy, including the Kenny technique. But even when they use the Kenny treatment, most doctors agree that poliomyelitis is a disease of the nervous system, and vigorously reject the Kenny theory that it is primarily a muscle-and-skin disorder. (2) All infantile paralysis victims treated by Sister Kenny get up and walk; those treated by other orthopedists become lifelong brace-and-crutch cripples, The facts: Sister Kenny’s record in Minneapolis, over a_fiveyear period. has just about matched the average for all modern infantile paralysis treatment: 6 per cent. deaths, 16 per cent. remaining severely paralysed.