Answer:
Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny was a pioneer in physical therapy. Born in 1880 nor far from Warialda in New South Wales town, her family then moved to Nobby on the Darling Downs, Queensland.
An accident during her teenage years, in which she broke her wrist, sparked her interest in anatomy. Though untrained, in 1911 she began working as a bush nurse in Nobby, even starting up a hospital in nearby Clifton. During World War I, she served as a nurse on soldier transport ships.
Sister Kenny continued to work as a nurse after the war, and even improved the design of stretchers used in ambulances on the Darling Downs. Marketing the stretcher as the "Sylvie Stretcher", Kenny gave the profits to the Australian Country Women's Association who managed sales and manufacture of the invention. Her initiative gained the attention of a family on a cattle station near Townsville, who arranged for her to come and care for their daughter who had been disabled by polio. Her methods of care and treatment enabled the girl to completely recover. She gradually achieved acclaim for her methods by the many polio-stricken children she treated and cured, but criticism from the medical fraternity for her lack of training.
Unlike other methods of the time, Kenny's treatment opposed immobilising affected limbs with casts or braces. She advocated treating children during the acute stage of polio and using hot compresses. However, doctors would not permit her to treat patients until after the first stage of the disease or until muscle spasms had ceased. Instead, she designed a programme of passive exercises to stimulate function.
Kenny's pioneering methods were gradually adopted by more physicians as she travelled to the USA to promote them. During her 11-year stay in America, she opened numerous Kenny Treatment Centres. Although her processes were criticised by many doctors, her dramatic results in affected children spoke for themselves. Her lasting legacy is her methodology for rehabilitating muscles, which formed the foundation for physical therapy, or what is commonly known as physiotherapy.