Polio Wars
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179. “Television Highlights” Washington Post September 30 1950; D. Randall MacCarroll to Gentleman [National Broadcasting Co.], [n.d.], General Correspondence–M, MHS-K; “Sister Kenny” Long Beach Independent October 26 1949; Dorothy Doan to Dear Sister Kenny, July 19 1950, General Correspondence-C, MHS-K.
180. Kenny to Dear Mr. Sullivan, September 1 1949, General Correspondence—S, MHS-K. This was the second season of the show.
181. F. A. Rowe to Dear Miss Curtis, September 6 1949, Dorothy Curtis, MHS-K.
182. A Kenny fundraiser had featured an episode of Martha Rountree’s show “Leave It to the Girls” that was televised “nationally”; McNair “Flaming Birthday Cake Surprises the Hostess At Alf Heiberg’s Party”; see also She Made It: Martha Rountree, Paley Center for Media http://www.shemadeit.org/meet/biography.aspx?m=150, accessed June 12 2013.
183. Dorothy Ducas from KBA Memorandum Re: Kenny Broadcast, October 16 1950, Public Relations, MOD-K.
184. [Transcript] “Meet The Press—WNBT—Sunday, October 1 1950,” Public Relations, MOD-K.
185. Dorothy Ducas from KBA Memorandum Re: Kenny Broadcast, October 16 1950.
186. Roland Berg to Dear Frank [Carey], April 26 1951.
187. “Farm Bureau Group Names Conciliators: Women Act To Heal Polio Discord” St Paul Pioneer Press January 18 1949; Kenny “Concerning the Extension of My Work in the State of California” [1949].
188. Kenny to Dear Mr. Dayton, March 14 1950, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K. She referred to the transference of $80,000 from Mrs. Oberhoffer from herself to the KF.
189. “Leaflets Puzzle Area” New York Times September 7 1950.
190. “California Speaks” [Perris, California] Progress November 3 1949.
191. [Transcript] Radio Reports, Inc. “Sister Kenny Given Pageant Magazine Award,” [1950], General Correspondence-P, MHS-K.
192. Mrs. Jean-Pierre Millon to Dear Sister Kenny, January 6 1949 [1950], Knickerbocker Ball, 1948–1950, MHS-K; “Resume [of Activities] October 13 1949,” [enclosed with] Milton Hood Ward to Dear Sister, October 13 1949, Knickerbocker Ball 1948–1950, MHS-K.
193. “New Clinic Opened For Polio Victims” New York Times November 17 1950; Kenny to the President And Members of the Board of Directors, December 15 1950; Kenny To The National Board of the Elizabeth Kenny Foundation Memorandum Re: The Situation in the State of New York [1950], Board of Directors, MHS-K; “Kenny Benefit Ball Tonight” New York Times December 2 1950; “Ball Helps Sister Kenny Fund” New York Times December 2 1950; “Tells of $250,000 Drive For Kenny Institute Here” New York Times August 14 1950.
194. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, November 30 1950; Kenny to Dear Mr. Shur, [Bertram Shur, Mrs. Madden’s attorney], April 27 1951, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K.
195. Kenny to the President And Members of the Board of Directors, December 15 1950.
196. John Nyberg “Sister Kenny Bids Adieu to Minneapolis” Minneapolis Star [December 1950], Public Relations, MOD-K; Kenny to Gentlemen [Mayor and Aldermen, City of Minneapolis], December 15 1950, Minneapolis, 1943–1950, MHS-K; “Sister Kenny Returning Home” New York Times December 6 1950; Kenny to the President And Members of the Board of Directors, December 15 1950.
197. “Sister Kenny Embarks For Native Australia” Sunday Sun December 17 1950, Public Relations, MOD-K; “Sister Kenny Departs” New York Times December 17 1950; Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, November 30 1950; Kenny to the President And Members of the Board of Directors, December 15 1950; John Nyberg “Sister Kenny Bids Adieu to Minneapolis” Minneapolis Star [December 1950], Public Relations, MOD-K.
198. [Transcript] “Conversation Between Sister Kenny and Mr. Marvin Kline, November 29 1950,” Marvin L. Kline, 1942–1959, MHS-K.
199. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, November 30 1950; Kenny to Dear Doctor Stevens, December 29 1950; Kenny to Dear Mr. Dayton, January 31 1950.
200. Kenny to Dear Mrs. Horton, April 28 1951, Henry Papers, MHS; “Sister Kenny in Australia” New York Times February 2 1951.
201. Kenny to Dear Mrs. Horton, April 28 1951; “Sister Kenny Sees Polio Patients” Toowoomba Chronicle March 17 1951; Kenny to Dear Mona and Belle, November 12 1951, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K; “Sister Kenny At Home in Australia” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune August 26 1951.
202. Kenny to Dear Mr. Haverstock, May 17 1951, Henry W. Haverstock, MHS-K.
203. Kenny to Dear Mr. Haverstock, April 6 1951.
204. Kenny to Dear Mrs. Madden, January 1 1951, New York City, 1942–1951, MHS-K.
205. Kenny “Why I Left America” Woman’s Home Companion (March 1951), 78: 38–39, 77–78, 80.
206. Kenny “Why I Left America,” 38.
207. “Sister Kenny” [Sydney] People Magazine June 20 1951, 3.
208. “Sister Kenny,” 3–4, 7.
209. Pearl Baldock (Mrs. R. G. Baldock) to Dear Mrs. Sterne, June 2 1949, General Correspondence-B, MHS-K.
210. “Establishment of Sister Kenny Clinics Long Overdue” Warwick Daily News July 13 1951, Wilson Collection; [Minutes] Public Meeting Held in the City Hall Theatre on Monday November 24 1952, at 8 p.m., Kenny Collection, Box 2, Fryer Library.
211. Sayre [1951] in Julie McDonald Ruth Buxton Sayre: First Lady of the Farm (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 118. Sayre was on a trip to 17 countries in 13 weeks, including New Zealand and Australia; McDonald Ruth Buxton Sayre, 115–118.
212. Kenny to Dear Mr. Shur, April 27 1951; Kenny to Dear Mrs. Madden, July 13 1951, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Friend [Laruelle], May 30 1951, Dr. Leon Laruelle, 1945–1951, MHS-K.
213. McDonald Ruth Buxton Sayre.
214. “Sister Kenny Sees Polio Patients” Toowoomba Chronicle March 17 1951; “Request to Minister on Sister Kenny Concept” Toowoomba Chronicle June 13 1951.
215. “Minutes of Meeting Held Toowoomba: Conference Called by Sister Elizabeth Kenny at Request of Interested Groups and Individuals Throughout Australia and Elsewhere,” August 4 1951, Kenny Collection, Box 2, Fryer Library. Sterne became the formal secretary of the new KF International Australia Branch; “Establishment of Sister Kenny Clinics Long Overdue”; “[Minutes] Public Meeting Held in the City Hall Theatre on Monday November 24 1952.”
216. “Minutes of Meeting Held Toowoomba,” August 4 1951. The group raised 200 pounds, which, they agreed, following Kenny’s lead, would not be used to pay the salaries of any “paid officials.”
217. “Minutes of Public Meeting Called By “International Organisation [sic] For Combating Poliomyelitis”: Held October 24, 1951,” Kenny Collection, Box 2, Fryer Library.
218. “Sister Kenny,” 3; “Sister Kenny in Australia” New York Times February 2 1951.
219. Kenny to Dear Mr. Haverstock, April 6 1951.
220. J. J. Nye to Dear Sister Kenny, November 3 1951, Kenny Collection, Box 16, Fryer Library; Mrs. R. G. [Pearl] Baldock to Dear Dr. Pye, May 21 1951, Kenny Collection, Box 16, Fryer Library.
221. Kenny, letter to editor, “Sister Kenny Still Working, She Writes From Australia” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune April 8 1951.
222. Kenny to Dear Mr. Haverstock, May 17 1951.
223. Kenny to Dear Friend [Lloyd Johnson], July 17 1951, James Henry, 1943–1951, MHS-K.
224. Kenny to Dear Mr. Shur, April 27 1951; Kenny to Dear Mr. Haverstock, May 17 1951; Howard J. London To Dr. Van Riper Memorandum Re: Sister Kenny, May 3 1951, Public Relations, MOD-K.
225. Kenny “Evidence Presented Concerning the Kenny Concept and Treatment of the Disease Infantile Paralysis,” [1951], Wilson Collection.
226. “Sister Kenny Departs From L.A. For Polio Meeting” Los Angeles Herald Express August 23 1951; Kenny to Dear Friend [Laruelle], May 30 1951; [Cohn second interview with] Rosalind Russell, August 18 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
227. “Sister Kenny Said To Be Incurably Ill” New York Times August 13 1951; “Nurse Who Ministered To Thousands, Now Ill” Atlanta Daily World August 14 1951; “Sister Kenny In Last U.S. Visit” Atlanta Daily World August 19 1951;
“Sister Kenny, Incurably Ill, Arrives in L.A.” Los Angeles Times August 18 1951; “Sister Kenny Off to Parley” Los Angeles Times August 23 1951; “Returns to U.S.” Chicago Daily Tribune August 18 1951; “Sister Kenny Now in L.A.; Fights Pain” Los Angeles Mirror August 17 1951. Kenny’s claim that she was dying and in great pain was squashed by John Sharpe, Rosalind Russell’s personal physician, who reminded her that this way of dramatizing her story would scare many people who had Parkinson’s, a disease which was “not as bad as she made it out to sound”; [Cohn interview with] Will O’Neill, [March 1955], Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
228. Elizabeth Coulson “Sister Kenny Races Death to Finish Her Work” Pasadena Star News August 20 1951; “Sister Kenny Off to Parley”; “Sister Kenny, Facing Death, Flies To U.S.” Santa Ana [California] Register August 15 1951.
229. Kenny to Dear Mr. Henry, October 4 1951, Henry Papers, MHS. She was accompanied by Miss Ella Vigar from Toowoomba; “Sister Kenny Here” New York Times August 23 1951.
230. “Sister Kenny, Incurably Ill, Arrives in L.A.”; “Sister Kenny Off to Parley.”
231. “Sister Kenny Writes Data for 3D Volume” New York Times August 24 1951.
232. On the neglect of Enders’ 1948 work see Aaron E. Klein Trial By Fury: The Polio Vaccine Controversy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), 58.
233. Spence “Poliomyelitis,” 304–305.
234. “Polio Fund, in Debt, Seeking $50,000,000” New York Times November 14 1950.
235. “Polio Experts Assemble” New York Times September 2 1951; “Doctors Told of New Promise in Polio Fight, Way Is Found to Inject Drug in Nerve Cells” Washington Post September 4 1951; “President Informed of Progress On Polio” New York Times September 27 1951; Poliomyelitis: Papers and Discussions Presented at the Second International Poliomyelitis Conference (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1952).
236. “Doctor To Discuss Polio-Like Virus” New York Times August 26 1951; “Rehabilitation Survey: Volunteer Worker Here to Study Methods in Europe” New York Times June 3 1951. A total of 150 physical therapists from 15 nations met to form a new World Confederation for Physical Therapy and Mildred Elson was elected as its first president; Howard A. Rusk “Major Gains Shown in Fight Against Infantile Paralysis” New York Times September 9 1951; “World Confederation for Physical Therapy” Physical Therapy Review (December 1951) 31: 525.
237. “Polio Test Reported” New York Times September 6 1951.
238. “Program: Second International Poliomyelitis Conference” September 2–7 1951, #1478, Series I, Box 74, Folder 1641, John Enders Papers, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives, New Haven; “Doctors Told of New Promise in Polio Fight, Way Is Found to Inject Drug in Nerve Cells” Washington Post September 4 1951; Howard A. Rusk “Major Gains Shown in Fight Against Infantile Paralysis” New York Times September 9 1951; W. C. Gibson “The Second International Poliomyelitis Conference: A Summary” Canadian Medical Association Journal (January 1952) 66: 69–71.
239. “Polio Serum Forecast at World Session” Washington Post September 2 1951.
240. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951, George C. Crosby, 1945–1951, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Kline, October 19 1951; “Move on Kenny Training Centre For Australia” Toowoomba Chronicle October 25 1951; Kenny My Battle and Victory: History of the Discovery of Poliomyelitis as a Systemic Disease (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1955), 104; Alexander Maverick, 185.
241. John F. Enders to Dear Doctor Fryberg, February 27 1952, Series I, Box 73, Folder 1637, Enders Papers. Fryberg responded that his answer “confirms what I have told Sister Kenny: that her concept is not proven”; A. Fryberg to Dear Professor Enders, March 6 1952, Series I, Box 73, Folder 1637, Enders Papers; see also A. Fryberg to Dear Professor Enders, January 10 1952, Series I, Box 73, Folder 1637, Enders Papers. When interviewed several years later, Enders confirmed that he had talked to Kenny at the conference and that she had asked whether his paper proved her theory that polio was not strictly neurotropic but also attacked peripheral tissue. He had replied that his work certainly did not disprove her theories, but the fact that the virus grew in a test tube did not mean it grew this way in the human body. He may have added, he recalled, “you may be right, of course … there may be something along these lines”; [Cohn phone interview with] John Enders, March 28 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
242. Richard Ulian “Sister Kenny Gets Sad Welcome on Final Visit” Minneapolis Morning Tribune September 17 1951. The house was sold by the city in July 1951.
243. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951.
244. John F. Pohl Cerebral Palsy (Saint Paul: Bruce Publishing Company, 1950), 26–30; [Cohn interview with] William O’Neill, May 20 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K. According to O’Neill Pohl’s estrangement from the Institute was the result of a battle with Huenkens over the use of respirators during the 1946 epidemic.
245. There is no mention at all of this topic or Pohl’s work in Kenny’s final autobiography.
246. Kenny to Dear Mr. Kline, October 19 1951.
247. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951; Herbert J. Levine I Knew Sister Kenny: A Story of a Great Lady and Little People (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1954), 225, 229–230.
248. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951.
249. Philip Sokol [counsel, Department of Welfare, City of New York] to Gentlemen [KF], July 24 1951, General Correspondence-G, MHS-K; Peter Gazzola to Marvin Stevens, August 24 1951, General Correspondence-G, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951.
250. Kenny to Dear Mr. Barnwell, November 18 1949, John J. Barnwell, 1947–1950, MHS-K. She had claimed that “this soft soap had no effect.”
251. Kenny to Dear Mr. Crosby, October 1 1951.
252. Kenny to Dear Mr. Kline, October 4 1951; “Sister Kenny Departs By Air for Australia” Washington Post October 9 1951; “Sister Kenny in Southland for ‘Last Visit’ ” Los Angeles Mirror September 27 1951.
253. “Sister Kenny’s Work ‘Not All Sadness’ ” Townsville Daily Bulletin [November 1951], Wilson Collection.
254. George Gallup “Sister Kenny Tops As Women’s Ideal” [unnamed newspaper], January 1952, Wilson Collection. In February 1951 Kenny had been chosen second, below Eleanor Roosevelt; Kenny was followed by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Clare Luce, and Helen Keller; George Gallup “Nation Picks Mrs. Roosevelt As Woman Most Admired” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin February 4 1951.
255. [Cohn interview with] Pete Gazzola, August 25 1953.
256. “Sister Kenny Deserves to Be Included in Honours List” Brisbane Courier-Mail January 14 1952; “Sister Kenny Wants No Other Title” Brisbane Courier-Mail January 17 1952.
257. Kenny “Doctors, I Salute You” American Weekly March 2 1952, 19.
258. W. M. Hammon “Possibilities of Specific Prevention and Treatment of Poliomyelitis” Pediatrics (1950) 6: 696–705; “Utah Children Get Polio Serum Test” New York Times September 5 1951. Hammon’s study of passive immunity to the polio virus was one of the first major double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials (Utah 1951, Houston and Sioux City, Iowa, 1952), which cost the NFIP $1 million; he presented the trial results at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Cleveland on October 22 1952; Charles R. Rinaldo, Jr. “Passive Immunization Against Poliomyelitis: The Hammon Gamma Globulin Field Trials, 1951–1953” American Journal of Public Health (2005) 95: 790–799; see also Stephen E. Mawdsley “Fighting Polio: Selling the Gamma Globulin Field Trials, 1950–1953” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2012).
259. “Two Reports Show Polio Can Be Beaten” Washington Post April 16 1952; see also Paul A History, 387–388. Note that Horstmann had reported these results at the 1951 Copenhagen conference.
260. Howard Blakeslee “Hope for Conquering Polio Seen; Scientists Find Its Origin in Blood” New York Times April 16 1952; “Prevention of the Crippling Form of Polio Believed Possible by Use of New Vaccine” New York Times April 16 1952. JAMA cautiously suggested the technique “may
lead to the introduction of a successful chemotherapeutic agent;” “Immunization Against Poliomyelitis” JAMA (May 17 1952) 149: 278–279.
261. “Sister Kenny Upheld On Polio, Aide Insists” New York Times April 17 1952; “May Beat Polio by Vaccination” Brisbane Courier-Mail April 17 1952.
262. “Sister Kenny On Polio Report” Toowoomba Chronicle April 18 1952.
263. Kenny to Dear Sir [Earle Page], April 23 1952, Wilson Collection.
264. Kenny to Dear Friends [Henry, Mintener, and Johnson], May 3 1952, Henry Papers, MHS.
265. “Huntington Park Parade Honors Sister Kenny” Los Angeles Times May 11 1952; “Sister Kenny Returns to Aid Fight on Polio” Los Angeles Times May 10 1952; Amy Lindsey “A Welcome, A Surprise and A Television Review” Kenny News (May 1952) 2: 4–5; “Sister Kenny Flies East For More Medical Conferences” Kenny News (May 1952) 2: 1. So impressed was Kenny with this new technology that she hoped physicians would “record per medium of TV” her signs of early diagnosis; Kenny to Dear Dr. Payne, September 10 1952, Minnesota-Hospitals, 1944–1961, Sister Kenny Institute, Judd Papers, MHS. On the rising numbers of television stations and television sets during the late 1940s see Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley “Learning to Live With Television: Technology, Gender, and America’s Early TV Audiences” in Gary R. Edgerton ed. The Columbia History of American Television (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 101–105.
266. Kenny Cause and Prevention of Deformities in Poliomyelitis: Presented to the Medical Staff of the Sister Kenny Polio Hospital, El Monte, California, Tuesday, May 20, 1952, author’s possession, 3–9, 11–14, 20–21, 26–28.
267. Kenny to Dear Rosalind and Freddie [Russell and Brisson], June 26 1952, Rosalind Russell (Brisson), 1947–1952, MHS-K.
268. On the 1952 polio epidemic see Julie Silver and Daniel Wilson Polio Voices: An Oral History from the American Polio Epidemics and Worldwide Eradication Efforts (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007).