Lives of the First World War

Elizabeth Kenny (20 September 1880 – 30 November 1952) was an unaccredited Australian nurse who promoted a controversial new approach to the treatment of poliomyelitis. Born in Warialda in New South Wales, in 1915, Kenny volunteered to serve as a nurse in the war. She was not officially qualified, but nurses were badly needed; she was accepted and assigned to "Dark Ships": transports that ran with all lights off between Australia and England carrying war goods and soldiers one way, and wounded soldiers and trade goods on the return voyage

Born in Warialda, NSW, Kenny began her career as a bush nurse in rural Australia, where she encountered her first cases of infantile paralysis or polio, and developed her own treatment methods by stimulating and re-educating the affected muscles, rather than immobilizing patients with splints and casts. During the First World War she enlisted as a nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), serving on hospital ships that brought home the wounded. In 1917 she was promoted to the rank of Sister, a title she used for the rest of her life. Returning to civilian nursing after the war, Kenny established four clinics to treat polio and cerebal palsy patients using her own methods. Despite her success, the conservative medical profession in Australia would not support her treatments. In 1940 she travelled to the United States, where she demonstrated her techniques during the height of the polio epidemic, and eventually gained widespread recognition.