Dr. Janet Travell, Myofascial Pain Syndrome, and the Morton’s Toe
You might not have ever heard of her but she was undoubtedly one of the most important physicians of the twentieth century. Like Dudley Morton before her, she understood how an abnormally working first metatarsal bone (Morton’s Toe) could not only cause foot pain, but could also cause pain throughout the whole body because of Myofascial Pain Syndrome. 
President John F. Kennedy, with his personel physician, in the White House,
Dr. Janet Travell, spring 1961
During her lifetime she not only helped develop a totally new understanding for why many of us hurt (Myofascial Pain Syndrome) and how to treat it, but she also served as the personal physician to two sitting Presidents of the United States and their families.
Dr. Janet Travell was born in 1901 in New York City. She came from a family of physicians. Her father, Dr. Willard Travell was recognized as an early pioneer in the treatment of pain. Janet’s sister, Virginia, also became a doctor, and was a noted pediatrician.
Dr. Travell attended Wellesley College, where she graduated in 1922 with honors. She then went on to Cornell University Medical School where she earned her M.D. in 1926. During her four years in medical school, she received the highest grades of any student. This was clearly a sign of things to come.
During the next thirty years of her medical career (it was a very long career) she became one of the leading experts in regard to the treatment of muscle pain (Myofascial Pain Syndrome) and in general pain management. That is the reason she met her most famous patient.
John F. Kennedy
As she wrote in her autobiography, she met her newly referred patient, Senator John F. Kennedy, for the first on May 26, 1955, at her office in New York City. He appeared weak, pale, anemic and thin in spite of having a nice Florida suntan. He was on crutches that day and was unable to walk down the few steps down from the sidewalk into her ground-floor office without help. He could not bend his right knee or put any weight on the left foot or side of his leg. To put it bluntly, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, three days shy of his 38th birthday, was a total physical wreck.
Now, fast forward five and a half years from that day in May 1955, when Kennedy met Travell for the first time. It is January 20, 1961, a very cold, snowy, and sunny day in Washington, D.C. (This writer remembers it clearly). At exactly noon, John Fitzgerald Kennedy takes the oath of office to become the 35th President of the United States. The question is, how, within a relatively short period of time, did this “basket case” of a man, who couldn’t even go down stairs without help, or walk without crutches, or even stand without severe pain, end up in the Oval Office? The answer is that he got lucky, partially because Janet Travell became his doctor.
Below is an excerpt from a handwritten note that came from the nice people at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. The note was dated June 23, 1961. It was written by Robert F. Kennedy who was John F. Kennedy’s brother, most trusted advisor, and the Attorney General of the United States, The note was written to Senator George McGovern regarding Dr. Travell’s treatment of President Kennedy. It said,
“Dr. Travell has been working with him [JFK] for many years and if it was not for her he would not presently be President of the United States.”
This remarkable statement by Robert F. Kennedy was referring to Dr. Travell’s ongoing rehabilitation of President Kennedy’s numerous problems. George McGovern was a good friend of the Kennedys who himself would be the Democratic Candidate for President in 1972.
“SHE’S A GENIUS”
That is what the New York Times quoted President Kennedy as saying, on January 27, 1961, concerning Dr. Travell for “curing” the ailments that had troubled him for many years.
In January 1961, when President Kennedy moved into the White House, he appointed Dr. Travell as the White House physician. She had the distinction of becoming the first female to be the personal physician to a sitting President. From her office in the basement of the White House, she continued to treat President Kennedy on a regular basis.
The Rocking Chair
For those of you who were not around at the time John F. Kennedy was President, he was famous for being seen in his rocking chair. He was always photographed or filmed sitting in it. Be it in a news reel, at a meeting with a world leader, or a still photograph where he was just thinking, there were hundreds of images of John F. Kennedy sitting in his cane rocking chair.
It was Dr. Travell who introduced Kennedy to the benefits of the rocking chair. She used rocking chairs as a treatment for back pain for many years, even before she met John F. Kennedy. She felt it decreased lower back strain by keeping the muscles moving, and often prescribed it to her patients.
LBJ and Later Years
After President Kennedy died, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Dr. Travell to stay on as the White House physician and she agreed. For the next year-and-a-half, she treated not only President Johnson, but the entire first family. In 1965, she resigned as the White House physician so she could continue her life’s work of writing and teaching about Myofascial pain, which she did for the next thirty years. For the vast majority of this time she was also on staff at George Washington Medical School where she ended her career with the highest honor which one could receive, the title “Professor Emeritus of Medicine”. Many of her medical papers are kept at the Gellman Library at George Washington University in Washington D.C, so future scholars can study.
Dr. Travell’s autobiography was published in 1968. It was called Office Hours: Day and Night.
It is a fascinating book that gives you a front row seat not only to Travell’s life and times, but also a grand view of the twentieth century. In 1984, the first volume of Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual , co authored by David Simons, M.D. was published, with the second volume being published in 1990. These two books are the “gold standard ” for Myofascial Pain and it treatments.
The Videotape
If there was any doublt left that Dr. Janet Travell felt that the Morton’s Toe or “The Dudley Morton Foot” was a cause of pain all over the body, the 1990 videotape she made should settle that question.
In 1990, Dr. Travell made a series of seven videotapes to educate health professionals about Myofascial Pain Syndrome. The tapes showed how to identify and treat those muscles throughout the body most often affected by Myofascial Pain. Of the seven tapes, only one was dedicated to a single subject. That tape was called “The Dudley J. Morton Foot “(Long Second Metatarsal). Its purpose was to educate her fellow physicians regarding the important role the Morton’s Toe can play in causing pain throughout the whole body.
It is hard to believe that Janet Travell was eighty-nine years old when she made this videotape. In it you see a highly intelligent and articulate physician delivering a lecture with an incredible ease and command of the facts concerning “The Dudley Morton Foot,” and all the problems it can cause. To watch her hands, the same hands that treated two Presidents of the United States, craft her version of the pad to treat Morton’s Toe is truly remarkable.
Dr. Janet Travell died on August 1, 1997 at the age of 95. Because of her lifelong work, she left the world a much better place than the one she came into almost a century before. Thousands of people are better and will be better in the future because of her remarkable career of almost seventy years.
