Richmond times-dispatch. [volume], July 18, 1915, Image 43

About Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
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The New
"Frauenthal
Method," by
Which Eighty
Per Cent of
the Cases
of Infantile
Paralysis Are
Cured in
a New York
Hospital
Explained
FP.OM a brown, wooden balcony
abutting from the second story of
a high graystone building, a row of
wan baby faces Is turned toward the
green foliage and the slanting sunshine
of Mount Morris Park in upper New
York.
On this balcony are usually a dozen
crooked little forms that by aid of medi
cine are being made straight. The
prisoners, passive upon their snowy
white cols, are askjng, with their serious
eyes, a question of life which science Is
affirmatively answering. "Can we bo
cured? May we ever become like other
children, those little ones in white dresses
that we glimpse and hear over there
among the trees?" They are cases, these
little ones, cases of infantile paralysis,
of curvature of the spine, of legs of un
even length, who ask the question. And
science is at last answering, "Yes."
Wo are used to hearing the question,
"Can Infantile paralysis be cured?" And
the reply, "No." A wealthy grandfather
went recently with a tiny, quiet form in
his arms to a surgeon's office, and while
tears he could not control coursed down
his cheeks, said: "I will give you half my
fortune if you will make this little fellow
walk." And the surgeon anrwered: "I
cannot."
They are not saying "I cannot" at the
Dispensary and Hospital for Deformities
and Joint Diseases, at the corner of
Madison avenue and One Hundred and
Twenty-third street. Their reply is:
"We are curing 80 per cent of the cases
of infantile paralysis brought to us. The
other 20 per cent are being greatly im
proved." To most of the mothers who
stretch out their arms with the quiet little
figures on them a sentence of real life
Instead of living death is pronounced.
The doctors in this institution have de
parted from the old and respected, per
haps too much respected, rule, of receiv
ing no cases of infant paralysis under a
year old. The dispensary receives them
from birth. And to all the sequels of the
dreaded disease, for all the years, the
doors of tho big. graystone shelter are
ppen. A man of sirty-threo came recently
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Little Patients
Exercising in th?
Mirror Room.
They Stand
Facinjj One
Mirror, Their
Backs to Another,
So That They
May See
the Progress
of Their
Muscle Building1.
The Secret
of Success in This
Treatment Is
the Patient's
Concentration
Which Is Aided
by the
Visible Signs of
Improvement arid
Renewed Hope
Which the Mirrors
Provide.
v
%
Muscle Education in Infantile Paralysis. Tho
Nurse Is Bending the Leg to Train
the Unused Muscles.
Babies Sunning Themselves on the Veranda While Undergoing "Traction," the Lengthen
ing of Limbs by Apparatus Attached to the Foot of the Bed.
to the institution and his case was
diagnosed as a sequel of Infantile
paralysis.
They place the afflicted little ones In
the clean white cots and keep them there
in absolute rest for forty-two days. They
wrap the little limbs In folds upon folds
of warming flannel, warming tlie frozen
muscles into life. They massage them
and apply electricity in light currents
and with utmost care. They use braces
t-arefully adapted to tho case. And then
comes muscle education, that practice
before mirrors, which has come to be
called the Frauenthal method.
Standing before one mirror, and with
the back to the other, the small patient
begins liis or her muscle education, if
a child can see what he is doing he is
Interested enough to continue with it, is
the principle of tho mirror system. In
the big, sunny gymnasium a child slips
into the blue denim gymnasium bloomers,
and the blouse without a back, which is
an invention by Dr. Herman Frauenthal,
the surgeon and physician in chief, and
the wearing of which is a part of the
Frauenthal method.
"Stretch." says the smiling woman in
stmctor. "That is right. Reach as high
qs you can."
The timid arms are upthrust. Tho
timid eyes catch a glimpse of the newly
active figure in the mirror which she
faces. In that mirror, too, she sees that
the back that has been crooked is being
slowly straightened by the exercise.
"My back's getting red, teacher." sa!d
a bit of a girl. "Yes, dear. The blood
Is running into it and nourishing the
muscles, just as milk nourishes your
stomach."
Thereafter the child was always
deeply Interested in what she termed
"feeding her muscles."
A child with a pronounced case of
curvature of the spine worked happily
before the mirror. "Her spine curved,
bowlike, toward the right.
"The right arm, Mollle, romembor.
Higher, higher," coaxed the instructor,
and as the child hung from the cross
bars. the left hand 'grasping the higher
bar, tho right tho lower, the distressing
bulk slowly stretchod itself into place.
Day after day, weok after week, month
after month, slowly, patiently, the work
goes on, and always before the mirrors.
"They are invaluable because they are
an aid in concentration," say the phy
sicians, who prescribe the muscle educa
tion and who are delighted with tho
progress mado under what is no longer
an experiment, but an established fact.
"I can't see any improvement," most
Copyright, 1015, by the Star Company.
Invalids com
plain. Stand
ing with mir
rors at front
and back the
dullest cannot
fail to literally
"see" the im
prove m e nt.
En couragc
m e n t means
new zeal. Hope
is one of the
greatest, if not
the greatest,
agent.
Next to tho
mirrors the
physicians at
the dispensary
rely upon
toot hbrushes
as homely aids in healing. A woman boo
bies into the clinic room. The doctor in
charge need ask no questions. Those
creaking joints denote their own in
adequacy to their duties. The effect is
apparent. At once and wisely the phy
sician seeks the source.
"Let me see your teeth." he says.
In ninety-nine cases out of one hundred,
he says: "Your teeth are neglected. Go
at once to the dental room." In the
dental room tho teeth .ire first carefully
cleaned. Then they arc treated to put
nn end to tho infection that in the largo
majority of cases exists, llesult. Dis
appearance of "tho rheumatiz," that tho
patient usually declares, "has given him
n misery as long as he can remember."
For rheumatism, many medical prac
titioners now agree, is a form of infec
tion. Rheumatic joints are infected
joints, and if you put an end to mouth.
Infection, chiefly by treatment for
pyrorrhea alveolaris infections, the joints
will cease to creak and will properly per
form their work of support and of motion,
!? the theory largely accepted.
Connected with this department is one
for nose and throat work, to investigate
the nose and throat as a point of infection
for joint conditions. Inflamed or sup
purating membranes form an ideal
culture ground for evil germs that,
Great Britain HlRhts Reserved.
traveling through the body by means of
the blood, take up their abiding place in
the joints.
It is impressed upon children, as upon
those elder children, adult patients, that
a toothbru! h. intelligently used, is one of
the first aids to health and one of the
mightiest preventives of disease. They
are taught to use the toothbrush and are
shown how to use it, by the up and down
instead of tho lateral movement, and the
value of dental floss for reaching points
Inaccessible to tho brush is emphasized.
At the dispensary the transplanting of
muscles is largely employed to win back
power to limbs so long unusued that it
would bn easy to regard them as useless.
"Our theory is that Nature has been
generous." said a house physician. "She
has been tropical in the luxuriance of
equipment. We believe that she has
given us more muscles than we need and
that it will do no harm and sometimes
will do great good to transplant a pair of
them. In the case of infantile paralysis
the body is like that of a rag doll. The
muscles are flaccid. They must be set
to work. Wherefore we have often drawn
a pair of back leg muscles around to tho
front. Leaving their attachment at the
source, tho back of the leg, we sew the
lower ends of the muscles to the patella,
the knee cap. Useless at the back, these
muscles are made to work where activity
is most needed.
The case of little Gertrude Allen, of
Fort Leo, N. J., is an illustration of how
the incurable disease, Infantile paralysis,
was cured.
At the age of one year the litle one
was stricken with infantile paralysis,
which left her right leg completely
paralyzed.- When she was brought to the
hospital th" right leg was absolutely limp,
and she was unable to support any weight
on the diseased limb. Last Summer an
operation such as has been described was
performed. One of the healthy muscles
was transplanted to the diseased area.
At the end of the six weeks the child was
able to move her leg for the first time
since her .illness. During the time she
?vyas also treated in tho clinic by means ot
timosago, electricity and muscle educa
tion. She continued to improve and is
now able to walk without assistance.
Harold Lltkoff was stricken with in
fantile paralysis during the epidemic of
1007. Ills left nrni and richt leg became
totally paralyzed, and the child was ab
solutely helpless, lie had to be wheeled
about In a carriage for eight months.
Four years later. ;ifter much treatment
and many pronouncements that nothing
could foe done for him. lie was brought to
the hospital, wearing heavy braces and
having to be carried up and down stnlra.
The diagnostician prescribed three visits
a week to the dispensary and muscle
education in the mirror room, where more
than one hundred and fifty children are
daily treated.
Harold has mado steady improvement.
He can now ascend and descend the stairs
without aid and can walk twenty city
blocks, equivalent to a mile. The once
stunted rhild. at ton and a half years of
age. weighs 9.r? pounds.
To the dispensary came Mrs. Etta Ket
xen. who, at seventeen, developed tuber
culosis ot' the hip. At forty-seven, having
been the subject of many medical experi
ments, all of which failed, she came to the
Hospital for Deformities mid Joint Dis
eases. It was necessary for two persons
to support her wasted form into the clinic
room. The upper part of her femur bone,
having wasted away, the affected log
was five inches shorter than the other.
She was treated in the institution until
the acute condition of the thiqh subsided.
She then received the traction treatment,
(lie lengthening or pulling of the leu by
means of an apparatus attached to the
foot of the bed and which appliance was
fastened to her affected limb. P?y means
of this traction her leg was lengthened
two and a half inches, and for the rirst
timo during her long-years of affliction
she could sustain ihovtvettfht of her body
without pain. She is now free from pain.
She walks without support. Her general
ondition is excellent, and she is able to
earn her own living.
In the mirror room she told her story
to a representative of this newspaper,
told it with streaming eyes.
" They're not doctors here," she said.
I hey are augeis from Hoaven."
In one of tho private rooms Is a briqht
eved. intelligent. hand>oiue young woman
who literally broke her neck In a fall dur
ing the fire in the Triangle Building. By
traction treatment, the drawing of rho
limbs in the apparatus described, and by
gymnastic exercises in the mirror room,
she has regained her health.
Electric, baking and the Zander apparai
tua are called into use in extreme cases}
of chronic joint affections.