BOY'S GREAT RECOVERY.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15361, 9 October 1923, Page 9

BOY'S GREAT RECOVERY.

GIVEN UP BY SURGEONS. HE "HEALED inMSELF." A boy of seven, Joseph Milford, has had a wonderful recovery in the Liverpool Infirmary after the surgeons had despaired of helping him. A fortnight ago the boy had a fall at his home in Watmough Street, and smashed the left side of his skull just above the ear. The surgeons at the infirmary dared not operate, and for several days the lad was unconscious, the whole staff being amazed that he continued to live.

Paralysed on one Side. When he regained consciousness he was paralysed down the whole of one side. Any operation for the removal of pressure from the brain by the extraction of bone splinters being out of the question, the doctors applied an anaesthetic in the hope that the complete rest of mind and body thus induced would preserve life. Beyond this they could do nothing owing to the boy's critical condition. The child lay under the anaesthetic for several days and a wonderful and totally unexpected change took pla:e. Skin formed across the gaping fracture, covering it so perfectly that were it not for a slight prominence it would be impossible to detect any trace Of a wound. More astonishing still, when" the patient came cjut of the anaesthetic his paralysis had gone and his mhid appeared clear and normal.

Sitting uo In Bed. The boy 's now well enough to be transferred to a coavalescent ward. When I =aw him to-day he was sitting up in bed. "We don't know why he is alive," said the surgeon. "He healed himself." He added that it was possible that even the bone would knit together, and so make it unnecessary that the aperture should be protected with a plate.