MEDICAL MIRACLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3219, 17 June 1909, Page 3

MEDICAL MIRACLE.

Astonishing results have followed the scientific treatment of little Mildred Hart, who, though twenty two years of age last September, had up to that time entirely failed to develop either physicially or mentally, and remained in all respects a baby. Since September she has been under experimental treatment by the administration of thyroid extract, and the wonderful effect of the drug is shown in the following account of Miss Hart's progress, appearing in the London "Daily Mail." "I drove from the railway station to the cottage in which Mildred and her parents live, and just as I arrived there the girl and her mother wera returning home. Mildred was in a perambulator wheeled by Mrs Hart. For something more than remarkable I was prepared, but what I found was astonishing. The little creatrue, who looked at me, and smiled at me, and pointed her finger at me from the perambulator was .just an ordinary child of three or four years. There was no conspicuous sign of deformity, or arrested development. There were none of the painful symptoms common to cretinism. The child's eyes were clear and bright, he cheeks were rounded, her entire appearance was healthy; it seemed incredible that she was born twentythree years ago. I asked more than once if this were really Mildred. We went into the house, and Mrs Hart produced a large photograph of Mildred taken before th» thyroid treatment was begun. The photograph showed a little girl with all the pitiful and very dreadful signs of cretinism; a creature with all the humanity lacking; a wretched, stunted, deformed body; a face more than simian in its idiocy, surrounded with hair like wire. I turned from the photograph to Mildred, and my wdKler grew. The transformation ot the horrible half-human being into a child, elfish looking but not unattractive, seems a veritable miracle. But, apart from the t.iarvellous physicial development of Mildred Hart, there is another and a very strange feature of the story; there is an extraordinary psychical side of this case. To all "inward seeming Mildred was an idiot from her birth until a few weeks back. How, then, can one explain the fact that she remembers and speaks of things that happened long ago, and that her family have almost forgotten? She lisps tunes that she heard in 1890. Mildred has grjwn a couple cf inches since the thryoid treatment was begun. She is now a little over three feet tall. Outwardly there is no difference between her and the ordinary child jijst saining consciousness of its surroundings. She has the smite of a baby; formerly she never smiled at all. Mildred's parents are quite poor, and t is doubtful if they can afford the th ngs that should be obtained for her. The child formerly ate almost nothing; now her appetite is remarkable "