STRANGE MALADY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23025, 30 April 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

STRANGE MALADY

PALL IN STREET PRETTY GIRL'S BRAVE FIQHT "HALF ASLEEP" FOR 4 YEARS Dorothy .Tanda is a (deeping beaut.v who is very wide awake. This pretty young girl, who lives in a poor but neat house overlooking the banks of tho Regent's Canal, London, has a strange medical history. Always happy and laughing, it is Dorothy's body, and not her brain, that is asleep. Below the waist Dorothy has no feeling. You could stick pins into her anil Dorothy would not move. Four years ago she was a dancing tomboy racing other children home after school. One day crossing the street Dorothy dropped. On lifting her they found she could not walk. She went before boards of doctors. They were puzzled. Then it was discovered that Dorothy bad been stricken with transverse myelitis of the spinal cord, a very rare germ so small that it cannot be isloated. Massage by Father After months in hospital, Dorothy returned home unable to move and unable to feel anything below the c chest. Doctors marvelled at the strength of her will power and the fact that she was still alive. The little house was transformed and the family of six took the place of a hospital staff. Dorothy's father, who is a basketmaker; learned to massage her cold little feet in the hope that she would become Btrong enough to walk. Her mother, a charwoman who gops out to work in the evenings, set to prepare special dishes to make Dorothy strong Sister Connie, aged fourteen, went to first aid classes and studied how a patient is most easily lifted and helped along. Little brother Clem, not yet ten-, helps too. Her Gift Dorothy has a great friend, Lily, who works in'an upholstering factory from eight in the morning till 5.30 at night. Lily arrives outside the house every evening at 5.45 to take Dorothy out in her bath chair. Sometimes they go to the pictures, and Dorothy's chair is placed beside the back row. On March 26 Dorothy was sixteen. She received a most cherished birthday present. A rich, middle-aged woman, whose name is unknown, drives every week for treatment to a hospital Dorothy visited. Recently she heard doctors discussing Dorothy's, case -and her brave spirit. She inquired about the .girl and through the doctors sent her a message asking her to accept a present—"the thing you want most." Dorothy, overjoyed, chose, a wrist watch.