Montana labor news., 1937-01-28
WARM SPRINGS, PLUS COURAGE, HELP
HOST TO BEAT GRIPPING PARALYSIS
Franklin d. Roosevelt First
Demonstrated Value of Spring
Treatment for Infantile Paral-
ysis Victims and Opened Way
to Others to Overcome Effects
of Dread Disease.

49, 1AAo OR>AA&0 oI
to Others to Overcome Effects
of Dread Disease.
WASHINGTON, D. C. QLNS)-.
There is a warm spring in Georgia
which is partly responsible for the
present President of the United
States. It's waters helped him in the
grimmest, hardest struggle of his
life. But they only helped. The
chief factor in that struggle was the
character of the man himself; with
all known kinds of courage, in guam
titles to which no one has found a
limit. He might-the chances are
that he would-have built himself
up again without the spring; but the
spring helped.
Flatly Refuses to Be Cripple
In the summer of 1921, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt went for a summer
vacation to the Maine coast, a model
Of health and athletic vigor. He came
away on a stretcher. Poliomyelitis
had gripped him; and nine hundred
and ninety-nine out of a thousand
victims, circumstanced as he was and
stricken as he was, would have end
ed their days in a wheeled chair.
Instead, he fIatly refused to be
a cripple With a courage and
patience which simply cannot
be overpraised, he worked to
train his legs to some measure of
usefulness again. You don't
know" he said to a friend, you
don't know how good it feels just
to be able to wiggle your foot"
After three years of struggle, in
the fall Of 1924, the future President
learned of a young man who had
been stricken like himself, and who
had spent three summers at Warm
Springs, Georgia, bathing in the
warm water; and who found that he
had been very much helped by it.
Mr.. Roosevelt went to Warm Springs
with no %appreciable delay. He went
back the next spring and spent
weeks, most of the time in the pools
of warn water. He saw such inn
provenent in himself and in others
that in 1926, he decided on a rather
comprehensive experiment.
The next summer, July %, 1927,
a non-profit corporation called the
Georgia Warm Springs Foundation,
was formed to take over the work.
That work has been continuing
and growing for nearly ten years.
The natural features of the enter
prise are almost ideal. It is far
enough south to have a long warm
season; but the altitude Of 1000 feet
above sea level insures a high per-
centage of cool nights, even in sum
mer. The water pours forth from
the springs at the rate of 1900 gal
Ions per minute; at a temperature
Of 80 degrees, day and night, sum
mer and winter, for as long as rec
ords have been kept. There is no
particular medicinal quality to the
water; but it contains enough min
erals to keep it from soaking out too
much of the mineral contents of the
human body through he skin; and
people can and do stay for hours at
a time in the pools with no weaken
ing effect.
These natural advantages have
been used to the full. 'Down in the
water" said one shrewd patient, I'VE
get away from Old Man Gravity"
1t is true. The human body and
water are so near the same density
that most of our weight is abolished
in the water.
The value of the Warm Springs
system is attested by literally hun
dreds who have been restored by it
from %helplessness to usefulness. The
need of it can be seen from two
facts. Last year, 1923 cases of polio
myelitis, commonly but incorrectly
called infantile paralysis, were e
ported in the United States; and in
spite of the efforts of scientists for
many years, neither nor cure
nor even an assured and available
means of prevention is yet known.
The last, indeed, seems closer than
the two others; but is still a good
distance from the demonstrated GER
tainty with which we may prevent
diphtheria if we go at the work in