HELP FOR THE CRIPPLED

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4753, 19 September 1924, Page 3

HELP FOR THE CRIPPLED

MIRACLE-WORKING SUBGEONS. (By Wepley Spragg.) “And immediately his feet and ankle bon'eg 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,” say four; or, to include the “leaping” stage, allow a few more.; and that is the history of scores of happenings at our own doors. Not all of people lame from their births, 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. And, mind you, the mod.ern miracles are as complete and wonderful as was the one wrought by Peter , and John —none the less wonderful because a surgeon and an interval of time come in between the beginning and the completion of the cures. This ig the story of King George V. Hospital at Rotorua, and the wonderworking officer in charge. Whenever 1 go to Rotorua I always try to spend an hour with the surgeon and his patients there, or, maybe, a portion of it in his operating theatre among those fascinating knives and things that belong to it, and in his cast room looking at the plaster records of the miracles of operations performed. But the patients are the more interesting. The plaster cast shows the marvel of a deformed member made normal and shapely in appearance—but the actual foot or leg, arm or spine, shows the life in the well-knit and flexible joint, the strong, well-placed elastic tendons and the developing muiscles, and the kiddies show their pride in what to them are heiw possessions and new powers. ' THREE MIRACLES. ‘ Take this case. Boy, eleven years old—Of good parentage—a nice inteL ligent lad, but 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, when told by his father to’ show the doctor “the bust 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. That was the best he could do.' Peter and John were wanted badly, or, maybe, the right man gifted with power from the same 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 he hurried, not gracefully, but very proudly, and I thought gracefully, 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 had, was worse than legless, with'the help of two sticks and trusting to splints to keep his yet fragile hones from snapping, walked from the hospital to the sanatorium grounds and back —say, .two miles —only being carried over the dangerous crossings ! Miracle ? Surely! Here is anothw bairn. Evidently in anticipation, he is rapidly unlacing a stout serviceable pair of apparently ordinary-fitting bobtis. He has been in hospital for four months, and is just due to leave it. A shapely foot is quickly bared. The beautifullyhealed scars showing where the long, clean incisions had been made on ankle and foot, and .the tiny pink marks of the stitches, like cleverlyspaced lace-holes, first attract attention, and then comes the real thing, the vigour of the little foot, nbt ,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, cramped and twisted out of semblance of a foot, and all the walking thfit 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. Wap it a miracle ? You may , call it what you like. Peter and John’s job was not a 1 igger one. Given a few more months and I guess their cure was scarcely a better one. 1 was allowed to examine the firm ankle joints and the newly-fixed tendons. One of these had been length-' ened by so much as would let the foot Wine straight by having spliced into it the pieces which had Leen taken out 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 telj of the case of a baby born with a severed spine—l am afraid that is not the way to describe it, but that was what was I he It was brought to the hospital when a month old, and was operated upon by having a piece of bone grafted into its spine. It fe now 12 months old, and is learning to walk. Isn’t it divine healing ? Im’t that surgeon as useful and as honoured as were those two men who helped the lame beggar in Jerusalem nearly 1900 years ago ? SPACE AT THE HOSPITAL. I am sorry that space will not allow me to tell of the 600 children who have passed through 'this hospital since it was opened in 1920 to deal . with such cases, or of the other .63 who at present enjoy the unremitting attention of doctor and nurses, or of their dormitories, set among the thou-sands-of daffodils on beautiful Pukeyoa Hill, overlooking Rotorua and

Mokuia, or of the schoolroom and its two excellent teachers, provided by the Education Department to keep the children abreast of their (studies, or of the Sunday school, their play, and their home life in a place which ?s all in keeping with the gentle quality, the miraculous surgical ability, and the tireless devotion of the unassuming superintending head. And now 1 come to my message. There are spare cots for 50 more childien at King George V. Hospital, and 1 want to say that if anyone belonging to me was deformed or misshapen in limb or spine, bom 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 be, 1 would move Heaven, and, if necessary, the other place as well, to get that sufferer under the care, if only lor examination, of one of the four or five specially trained and qualified whose presence enriches this Dominion. After having seen the impossible which has been done at King George’s, I 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 neglect and unpardonable cruelty.

Auckland Public Hospital has 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 cost of the small Government fee, or as may be otherwise arranged, and with almost limitless hope, especially for young children, deformed, crippled, or paralytic.