Spastic Paralysis

Since she was born 20 years ago, Sylva Eugenie Davis of Kansas City has not been able to use her arms or legs. The nerve tracts in the neck region of her spinal cord were injured at birth, causing spastic paralysis (muscular rigidity). But Sylva was endowed with high courage. She learned to read, turned the pages of her books with her tongue. She used a typewriter by poking the keys with a pencil held between her teeth. With a brush between her teeth she tinted photographs, made drawings. She was careful of her appearance, applied her own cosmetics by moving her face against lipsticks and powderpuffs. Her parents took her to the cinema in her wheel chair.

Recently Sylva heard there was a chance of improvement by surgical operation--crushing the malformed nerve tracts in her neck in the hope that they would grow together normally. Such an operation, though not unique, is rare. Stocky, bespectacled Dr. Frank Randall Teachenor, one of the most brilliant neurological surgeons in the Midwest, had never before performed it. He warned Sylva that although it might help her, it might make her worse or even cause her death. Sylva decided to take the chance. Her mother tried to dissuade her, but the girl persisted in her determination.

Last week Dr. Teachenor exposed the nerve tracts, determined which ones were injured, crushed them. After the operation blood transfusions were given and the girl was placed in a respirator. When she regained consciousness, she cheerfully asked her nurse to sing a song. Not for .some time can it be known whether her paralysis will be cured. The surgeon, however, found "a favorable indication of successful recovery."

Not every spastic paralytic can take a gamble like Sylva's. Sometimes the motor control centres of the brain are injured at birth. Such children may learn to walk after a fashion, but their movements are disordered and uncontrolled. They are often mistakenly considered feebleminded, although the intellectual centres of the brain are intact and the sufferers may be intelligent. Best hope of improvement for such persons is in patient self-education and enlightened help from others. One of the most eminent spastic paralytics in the U. S. is Dr. Earl Reinhold Carlson of Manhattan's Neurological Institute (TIME, May 30, 1932). Once a convulsive cripple, an orphan at 18, Earl Carlson conquered his handicap by dint of iron determination, plowed through college and medical school, is now practically normal. He advises hundreds of mothers on what to do for their spastic paralytic children.

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