Browning chief., 1948-05-07
by Kathleen Norris
Bell Syndicate.-WNU

Oy hutfttC6H NOII 10
THIS is a true story about the
L children in our family; my
telling it will show you how much
in earnest I am about the great
national killer, for I don't often
get so personal.
About 20 years ago, an 8-year-old
girl in my nursery had severe cold
at the end of Christmas holidays.
While I was worrying as to whether
she ought to start back to boarding
school or not, we took the short mo-
tor trip from the ranch to the city
apartment, and when it came time
for the small girl to get out of the
car, she could walk only with diff
Guilty, and she was white with pain.
We got her into bed, and got the
right DOCTOR know he was the right
doctor because he said at once that
it was rheumatic fever, that it would
touch her heart if we didn't take care
and that she must stay in bed, not
leaving the bed for baths, changes of
linen or anything else for six weeks.
We followed these hard rules care
fully, the little girl became well, and
is now happy wife and mother.
The instant the doctor diagnosed
her case, telephoned the neighbor
who had shared our holidays, and
whose two children had also had the
heavy colds and the mysterious sharp
pains in legs and stomach. But this
neighbor was happy-go-lucky soul
who believed that children will do
anything to get out of a return to
school, and she packed them off with
no further thought. They took cold
bus ride. sat on school benches, idled
about the playground in recess and
presently the small girl was seriously
i'll. For two years she was invalided,
bright red spots on her cheeks, pain
off and on, danger always close. But
she survived, and although not a
strong woman, still is living a nor
NAL life
Boy Drops Dead
The boy seemed all right, but he
dropped dead at II years of age, in a
football game.
This story is factual, and may
seem unusual. But unusual is what
it isn't.
1t is the saddest and commonest
story of American childhood. 1t is
the story of the heart trouble that
touches thousands-tens of thousands
of lives every year, weakening, in
juring hearts, making them ready for
final trouble.
Not as bad as the dreaded polio?
Not like that? Why, it is 80 times
more prevalent and more fatal
than polio. For every child strick-
en- by infantile paralysis, 80 are
fatally or permanently injured by
this insidious and vOracious evil.
Children's deaths from polio,
whooping cough, meningitis, measles,
| diphtheria and scarlet fever all COM
| bined, don't amount to more than a
fraction of the deaths from injured
hearts.
And this is not to say that in the
end, inaSmuch as the heart stops
beating at death, all disease and
death come from the heart. No, this
is specific and localized trouble with
the organ itself.
Considering all this, why do SC
many mothers strain their energies
and incomes to the limit, on schools
amusements, clothes for the children
and overlook the pitfall right at theil
feet, that pitfall that is dug by the
heavy cold, the touch of rheumatic
fever and the ignorant neglect? The
minute you hear, from competent
pediatrican or diagnostician, tha
there is 'murmur" in tn. heart o1
the child you love, then that chile
must get straight into bed and be
watched. kept warm and amused