HELPING THE CRIPPLED

Waikato Independent, Volume XXIV, Issue 3280, 7 October 1924, Page 6

HELPING THE CRIPPLED

(By Wesley Spragg)

"Ami immediately his feet, and ankle bones received strength." That sentence out of a Bible story has been in my ears more or less continuously since I returned to my home two days ago. It appears that the man who is referred to had never walked, but something happened and he became immediately and completely cured, for "he, leaping up, stood, walking and leaping." A wonderful story which taxes belief in these days—and yet leave out the "immediately" and substitute for it "months," sav four; or. to include the "leaping" stage, allow a few more and that is the history of scores of hap-

penings at our own doors. Not all of people lame from their birth, but quite a number of them, and, for the rest, victims as pitiful; children whom paralysis has left with twisted, distorted, useless limbs and bodies. Arid mind you the modern miracles are as complete and wonderful as was the one wrought bv Peter and .John—none (he less ‘wonderful because a surgeon

and. an interval of time come in be tween*- the . beginning and the cample

rion of the cures,

This is the story of King George V. Hospital :it .Rotorua, and the wonderful wording officer in charge. Whenever T go to'Rotorua. I always try to spend an hour with the surgeon and his patients there, or maybe a portion of it, and in his rasl room looking at the plaster records of the miracles of operations performed. But the patients are the more interesting. Tin* plaster cast shows the marvel of ,-i deformed member trade normal and shapely in appear-a.iici*-—but the actual foot or log, arm or spine, shows the life in the well-knit and flexible joint, the strong well(daeed elastic tendons and the developing muscles, and the kiddies show their pride in what to them tire new possessions mid new jiowi'rs, » Three Miracles. take this case. Boy. eleven years old—of good pa. rent age—a nice inlelli- _ gen I lad, but bora with legs so shrivell'SfoSffelbd useless that the only thing to do'with them was to tuck them into the smallest space and keep them out of tht! way. Eighteen months ago. when f' -, bl by his father to show the doctor “the best he - e.ould do.“ this little fellow rolled aevoss tin* rug in front of the tire and hoisted himself upon his hands with his body poised in the air and his pitiful stems of legs, a negligible pan-el of little sticks, folded closely together- and' balanced across his shrunken buttocks, with head hanging flown ward: and rooking between his arms lie cheerfully sainted the dottier. That was the best he could d<». Peter and' ,Tohn were wanted badly, or, maybe, the right man gifted with power from tin- sa.me source had come.

Six weeks ago this boy’s feet touched the ground, to be used, as feet, for the first time. On Sunday last hi- hurried. riot gracefully, but. very proudly, and 1 thought gratefully, across the lawn to show off his entirely new accomplishment of walking. During the preceding week this dear kiddie, who. until the miracle-worke.r took him in hand, was worse than legless, with the help of two sticks tied trusting to pl'inls to keep his yet fragile bones from snapping, walked from the hospital t<> the sanatorium grounds and back —<ay, 2 miles—only being carried over the dangerous crossings! Miracle? Su rt-1 v!

Hen* is another bairn. Evident lv in

anticipation, he is rapidly unlacing a stout serviceable pair of apparently ordinary fitting boots. He has been in hospital for four months, and is just due 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 deverlv-spaccd laceholes, first attract attention, and then comes (lie real thing, the vigour of the little foot, not a plaster cast, but a firm, yet flexible, but 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 follow were turned back from their ankles, cramped and twisted out of semblance of a foot, and all the walking. that was done was upon the ankle

joint. I had previously seen the casts of this boy’s feet as they were just four months ago. I now saw the reconstructed foot. Was j.t a miracle? You may call it wliat you like. Peter and John’s job was hot a bigger one. Given a few mere months and I guess their care was scarcely a better one. I was allowed to examine tlfe firm ankle joints and the newly-fixed tendons. One of these, had been lengthened by so much as would let the foot come straight by having spliced into it the pieces which had been taken ou( in the shortening of the opposite tendon. I tried the elasticity of the foot by pressing it back with my hand, and the resistance was practically that of a normal one.

I would like to tell of the case of a baby born with a severed spine—l am afraid that is not the wav to describe it, but that was what was the matter. It. was brought to the hospital when a. month old, and was operated upon by having a piece of bone grafted into its spine. If is now 12 months old. and is learning to walk. Isn’t if divine healing? Isn’t that surgeon as useful and as honoured as were those two men who helped the lame beggar in Jerusalem nearly 15)00 years ago? Space, at King George Hospital.

1 a m sorry that space will not allow nii- to tt-11 of the (500 children who have passed through this’hospital since it was opened in 1020 to deal witli such cases, or of the other (>.“, who at present enjoy the unremitting attention of doctor and nurses, or of their dormitories. :ef among the thousands of daffodils on beautiful Pukermi Hill, overlooking Rotorua and Mokoia. or of the schoolroom ami its two excellent’ touchers, provided bv the T.'ducntion Department to keep the children abreast of their studies, or of the Sunday school, their olav. and their home life in a place which is all in keeping with the gentle quality, the miraculous surgical ability, and tin- tireless devotion of the unassuming superintending head.

And now I came to my message. There are span- cots for 50 more children at King George V. Hospital, and T want to say that if anyone belonging fo me was deformed or mis-shapen in limb or spine, born so. or as the result of disease or accident, no matter how bad or how hopeless I or anybody else might think their case to in*. T would move .Henveil, and. if necessary, the other place as well, to get that sufferer under the care, if only for examination, of one of the four or five specially trained and qualified surgeons whose oresence enriches this Dominion. After having seen the impossible which has been done at King George’s. T should not let anyone. doctor. surgeon, or otherwise, persuade me that the case was hopeless until one of these special men said so. They should at least see my patient. For me to stop short of that would, for me. be criminal negleel and unpardonable cruelty. Auckland Public, Hospital lias such a surgeon, and for the country south of Auckland, far and wide, the marvellous skill of the Government medical superintendent at King George V. Hospital, Rotorua.. is available at the eost of the small Government fee, or as may be otherwise arranged, and with almost limitless hope, especially for young children, deformed, crippled, or paralytic.