Child Will Wake Blind, But Live

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30005, 14 December 1962, Page 13

Child Will Wake Blind, But Live

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NEW YORK, Dec. 13. Margaret McKeown, of Glasgow, will wake up this morning in a world of unaccustomed darkness after an operation yesterday that took away her sight but was expected to save her life. Margaret, 19 months old, underwent surgery for the removal of her one remaining eye, affected by a rare hereditary form of cancer, at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre. The operation was tentatively described as a success. Her three elder brothers, who came here with Margaret and her parents on Monday, were given eye examinations but found to have no trace of the disease, known as reinablastoma, a hospital spokesman said.

The boys were“very lucky," he added- “The hereditary trend is so strong that we usually advise people who have suffered from it not to have children at all.” Mr Matthew McKeown, Margaret's father, lost one eye to the disease when a child. Margaret lost her left eye in an accident in Glasgow The cancer was later located near her right eye, and doctors said that if the eye was not removed the cancer would . spread to the ' brain and inevitably result in death. All costs of the McKeown's visit to the United States are being born by Mrs Maria Ramsay, wife of a retired American financier. Margaret is expected to leave the hospital some time this week-end.