WAR BLINDED SOLDIER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1940, Page 6

WAR BLINDED SOLDIER

TRADITIONS OF ST DUNSTANS. - 5 We have not. had to steel ourseives. M as an Empire, to face the casualty lists that must come, as the- War assumes a more intensive phase. But. already, , with the numbers of our armed forces | swelling to millions of young men, j there have in the nature of things been < not a few cases of accident or sickness. c Less than ten of these have suffered eye damage, but the work of restorelion has fully begun; and the organisation of St Dunstan’s has been prepared to meet any future demand that may bo made upon it. slates Captain Sir lan Fraser, chairman of St Dunstan's. It was perhaps only in the last War. when tlie public sympathy was stirred by the realisation of hundreds of mon blinded in the prime of life, that St Dunstan's could have been created . through the genius of Sir Arthur ' Pearson. Much has been done by ’ civilised society for the training .of ! those who are blind from infancy and those who slowly lose their vision in ( later years;. the problem of the active man in his twenties, who meets with . sudden blindings. is of a different order; it has called for new methods and a now spirit. The founder of St Dunstan's himself went blind, when he was already a man with wide experience of affairs. He was able to solve the! problem not only for his younger contemporaries. but also, I venture to think, for generations to come. What had to be created and slowly tested from 1915 onwards is now a great tradition of work and understanding. We have the essentials in being—the convalescent home on the Sussex Downs, now a hospital, and above all that team of experienced men and. women who have worked together ; for many years, as represented by our staff. ■ Many of these themselves partiJ cipated in the early development of . St Dunstan's. The tradition of the j place was built by them and, in as great a measure, by every one of the r three thousand men. who have passed s through it as blinded ex-service men. f and who each contributed his share of t effort in the solution of many new and i strange difficulties. St Dunstan's has been a communal products, reaching - down to the present day; for even last r yea) 1 there were forty fresh admissions to hospital due to the Great War. sevs cral of them suffering from the delayed j effects of mustard gas; and it may be said, I believe, that those of us who were blinded in 1914-18 have already j contributed a small share to the present national effort through the knowledge we have gained in the art of restoring confidence and an active life to those who will need St Dunstan's help. We have undertaken the task of providing medical and surgical treatment for all the members of the armed forces, defence forces, fishing fleet and civilians, who may be blinded through Li enemy action: the service personnel will be cared for for life: further, the Dominions are adopting St Dunstan's for any of their men who may be 1_ blinded. It is now a quarter of a cen,r iury since our work first began. Tn that time almost a thousand of the men who passed through St Dunstan's have died. But' the rest still remain as an embodiment of that sense of security and fresh vigour the Empire can so fully give io those who arc handicapped among her fighting men. My appeal io the British people at home and overseas is meeting with a ti generous response, and I am very grateful.