INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Southland Times, Issue 19462, 29 January 1925, Page 5

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

MORE CASES REPORTED. POSITION IN CHRISTCHURCH. SOME DOUBT EXISTING. (Per United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 28. In the opinion of the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. Telford) three cases of infantile paralysis have been located in Christchurch. However, the Christchurch Hospital authorities who are treating the children do not consider that the presence of the disease has been proved beyond doubt. The cases are those of a boy of eight from Papanui, a boy of three from Spreydon and a girl of seven from Riccarton. WANGANUI, January 28. Three cases of infantile paralysis were reported to-day, two from the city and one from Huntervillc. VICTIMS IN HOSPITAL. ORTHOPAEDIC TREATMENT. CURING CRIPPLED CHILDREN. ACHIEVEMENTS AT ROTORUA. The fact that infantile paralysis often leaves its little victims with crippled limbs makes it imperative for parents to take every possible precaution to guard their children from infection. Those who have seen the hundreds of children, cruelly deformed as a result of the epidemic of infantile paralysis in 1916, who have received treatment at King George V. Hospital, Rotorua, for the correction of these deformities realise the frightful extent of the toll the disease levied upon little children. The work of this and other hospitals whieh specialise in orthopaedic surgery is (says the New Zealand Herald) a warning to the public against exposing children to any risk of infection, but also a ray of hope to those households that have been invaded by the disease. These hospitals represent the ambulance at the bottom of the precipice, which must exist as long as there are not effectual barriers at the top. Although no guarantee can be given that a cripple will be benefited by the treatment, the general experience has been that patients receive great benefit and sometimes are restored in a manner that suggests the miraculous. Surgery has made great advances in this department, and no crippled child need abandon hope. When the Parliamentary party that toured the East Coast in 1921 visited King George V. Hospital the superintendent, Colonel Hogg, said he regarded the movement by the Public Health Department for the treatment of children suffering the consequences of infantine paralysis as the most important it had ever undertaken. Splendid work was then being done, and it has been continued ever since. Not all the patients, by any means, have been the victims of infantile paralysis. Many were born crippled, but those in the former category make a formidable total.

THE RANGE OF TREATMENT. The treatment may be divided into three groups: (1) The correction of deformities by plaster and splintage; (2) psycho-thera-peutic treatment, including baths, massages and electric treatment; and (3J reconstructive surgery. A case shown to the members of Parliament four years ago was that of a little girl who had been born with both feet so much turned in that she walk- | ed on what was the side of the foot, and i there soles of hard skin had formed. Partly I through surgical assistance and partly through the use of plaster and splints, both feet had been straightened. I It has been emphasised that the sooner I a child, suffering from a deformity as the ' result of infantile paralysis, was sent for treatment the greater is the prospect of success.

In a recent article upon the work being performed at King George V. Hospital, Mr Wesley Spragg instanced the case of a boy of 11 years, who had been born with legs so shrivelled and useless that the only thing to do with them was to tuck them into the smallest space and keep them out of the way. “Eighteen months ago,” wrote Mr Spragg, “when told by his father to show the doctor ‘the best he could do,’ this little fellow rolled across the rug in front of the fire and hoisted himself upon his hands, with his body poised in the air and his pitiful stems of legs, a negligible parcel of little sticks, folded closely together and balanced across his shrunken buttock. With head hanging downward, and looking between his arms he cheerfully saluted the doctor. WALKING FOR THE FIRST TIME.

“Six weeks ago this boy’s feet touched the ground, to be used as feet, for the first time. On Sunday last he hurried, not gracefully, but very proudly, across the lawn to show off his entirely new accomplishment of walking. During the preceding week this dear kiddie, who, until the miracle-worker took him in hand, was worse than legless, with the help of two sticks and trusting to splints, to keep his yet fragile bones from snapping, walked from the hospital to the sanatorium grounds and back—say, two miles—only being carried over the dangerous crossings. “Here is another bairn,” proceeded Mr Spragg. “Evidently, in anticipation, he is rapidly unlacing a stout serviceable pair of apparently ordinary-fitting boots. He has been in the hospital for four months, and is just about to leave it. A shapely foot is quickly bared. The beautifully-healed scars showing where the long, clean incisions had been made on ankle and foot, and the tiny pink marks of the stitches, like cleverly-spaced laceholes, first attract attention. Then comes the real thing, the vigour of the little foot, not a plaster cast, but a firm, yet flexible, bit of living bone, tendon, sinew and muscle, which will carry the weight of a healthy boy, and upon which he will yet walk ‘leaping’—and four months ago that foot and its fellow were turned back from their ankles, champed and twisted out of semblance of a foot, and all the walking that was done was upon the ankle joint.”