Nurse who invented a new way of treating polio and saved many children’s lives

Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952), was a self-taught bush nurse and daughter of Michael Kenny, a farmer from Ireland, and his wife Mary Moore.

In 1910 Kenny was working as a nurse from the family home at Nobby on the Darling Downs, riding on horseback to give her services, without pay, to any who called her. In 1911 she used hot compressions and passive movements to treat symptomatically puzzling new cases, diagnosed as infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis). The patients recovered. Kenny then opened a cottage hospital at Clifton.

During World War I, she was appointed staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service.

Her controversial method for treating Polio patients, which she promoted internationally while working in Australia, Europe and the United States, differed from the then conventional medical practice which called for placing affected limbs in plaster casts. Sister Kenny’s principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation physiotherapy.

Sister Kenny was buried beside her mother in Nobby Cemetery. You can visit the Sister Kenny Memorial House in Nobby, Clifton, Queensland to find out more.