VACCINE MARTYR

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 131, 29 November 1929, Page 11

VACCINE MARTYR

THIRTEEN YEARS IN BED

A MEDICAL MYSTERY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 21st November.

Unable to move any part of his body but his head, Percy Winsome Harburgh, of Sydney, has lain in bed for thirteen' years. He cannot even feed himself. His case provides a medical

mystery.

During the big smallpox scare in Sydney in 1913 Harburgh was vaccinated. Duo it is said to the operation of the germ in the vaccine, he slowly became paralysed, until at the end of three years he was helpless. He was then placed in bed, and he has hardly been moved from it since except on to a bod chair in his airy bedroom. His body twitches at night, and he has to be strapped to his bed in' order to prevent him from falling out. It is explained that the vaccine had affected the spine, the marrow in which had gradually been eaten away. Tho germ was slowly climbing the spine.

Harburgh is a pathetic figure, as the pain he goes through is dreadful. "I suffer awful agony," he gasped, when he was. seen by a reporter. "I am never free from pain, and if I did not have so' many friends I do not know how I would bear it."

Up to the present move than £.3000 has been spent in an endeavour to effect a cure, but all to no avail. A specialist is now treating -Harburgh free of charge, and it remains to be seen whether he will succeed where so many other doctors have failed. In the circumstances the patience of the sufferer is remarkable, and it is not the least remarkable feature of this strange ease. Doctors are unable to cure the disease, and they are also unable to account for the great fortitude and courage displayed by the sufferer. They marvel that he has not been a victim to exhaustion, if not to the dreadful disease from which he alone in all the world appears to be suffering. Harburgh always smiles when he has visitors, and he has many.

Perhaps it is the enormous courage of his wife that gives him heart. She has stood by her husband for the last thirteen years, and has seldom left his bedside. "She- has been great," said Harburgh. "How she has helped me." Mrs. Harburgh declared that doctors were scarce during the outbreak, and the help of students had to be obtained. She claims that it was a student who vaccinated her husband. "When his arm. begaa to swell," she explained, ".we rang tlie department, but were told that we would have to call in outside medical help. 'Students have to learn, and practical experience is best,' we were told."

Every year sufficient .money is obtained by those interested in the case to keep the couple, and tho annual Christmas appeal is now meeting ..with its usual ready response. Mr. and Mrs. Harburgh are always assured of a welcome Christmas box.