Elizabeth Kenny

Born in New South Wales in 1880, there are limited records surrounding Elizabeth's formal education, yet in 1911 she was symptomatically treating patients who had been diagnosed with infantile paralysis, or poliomyelitis.

On the 30th May 1915, Kenny enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service and served on troopships bringing injured soldiers back home. She was promoted to the role of Sister in 1917 and continued to use that title until her death in 1952.

In 1932, Sister Kenny established a backyard clinic in Townsville and treated long-term polio sufferers and cerebral palsy patients with hot baths and discarding braces an callipers in favour of encouraging active movement.

Despite her lack of formal education, Elizabeth stood by her theory that lesions existed at the site of paralysis in polio victims, and in 1937 she published her views in Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia publication in Sydney.

In 1940, after both success in England and a Royal Commission against her treatments in Australia, she arrived in the United States where her treatment methods for polio became widely accepted.

While there was ongoing debates and disagreements about some of her theories, Sister Kenny went on to become widely respected and received many honours from America including honorary degrees, going to show that success comes in many forms with or without a formal education.