Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1911 — WILL FIND DEFORMITY [ARTICLE]

WILL FIND DEFORMITY

Child’s Curved Spine Often Escapes Doctor’s Scrutiny.

Dressmakers’ Measurements Disclose Defect When the Time for Any Effective Treatment of Trouble Has Passed. Chicago.—“lf your child has a backache and your doctor can’t cure it, send for the dressmaker; she knows more than the doctor about crooked backs.” Such is the advice given by Prof. Henry D. Thomas of the Northwestern University Medical school in a lecture <to the members of the Chicago Visiting Nurse association at the Wesley hospital. “In the clinic records there are the histories of 4,000 cases of bowed-legs and 3,000 cases of scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, which were treated In the last ten years,” he continued. “In the cases of spinal trouble the disease began when the child was from three to eight years old usually. “No one knew anything of the disease in many cases until the child was old enough to go to the dressmaker. Then it is too late for any effective treatment. The girl’s mother—girls have 75 per cent, of the cases—never sees it, the family doctor overlooks It, and not until the dressmaker begins to do some measuring does the deformity appear. Once started, the process continues with terrible effects. "The number of children who suffer from this disease Is very large. Some estimators state that it is as high as 60 per cent.; others place the figure as low as two per cent My own .calculation, based on an examination df the

school children in Chicago, is three per cent My examinations, however, were made without removing the clothing, and so the real figures may be higher. “Sometimes the curvature Is congenial; sometimes it comes from rlcketts; often the position which a child assumes in school is the cause. The child has a slight deafness in one ear, an astigmatism in one eye too slight to be noticed, or perhaps Is simply weak. Sitting all the time in some crooked position day after day and year after year will develop a good case of curvature. “The only way to effect a cure is to begin the treatment early. Hence mothers, family physicians and nurses should examine children very carefully, and especially carefully when the child complains of some weakness or shows signs of being always tired.”