Related to National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
Description:

Conveys Guttmann's recollections of the early years of the Stoke Mandeille Spinal Injuries Unit:

 

'Even in the early stages of World War II, when Great Britain stood alone in the fight for freedom, spinal cord casualties were segregated in special units - the view being held that there would be better chances there for more adequate treatment than could be given in general medical, surgical, orthopaedic, or neurosurgical wards' (9-10)

 

'"You will have to start from scratch", Dr. Riddoch wrote to me. And how right he was!' (10)

 

'I must confess that I accepted the job with some misgivings - not that I was afraid of the responsibility... Nor was I unduly disturbed about the lack of equipment and facilities... My real worry was that I was only too aware of the difficulties which might be caused by prejudices arising from the fact that I was then a stranger in this country, and, although I was once mistaken by a friendly New Zealander for a Yorkshireman, I had no illusion that my "dialect" would be officially accepted by the natives of that country!' (11)

 

'those 25 to 30 first patients admitted... were transferred to us almost immediately from the battle-front, with gaping wounds of the spine and associated injuries of the limbs or internal organs, others from hospitals and other institutions in later stages of their injury, who had lain for many months in plaster beds and had become stiff as boards... men and women seriously ill from sepsis caused by multiple bedsores and infected kidneys and bladders, some of them emaciated from their sepsis and loss of body protein, like inmates of Belsen concentration camp' (11-12)

 

'It was something of a new approach, in those days, not to consider a paraplegic merely as a neurological, orthopaedic, neurological, or plastic surgical case, but as an individual - to treat a human being, not a disease.' (12)

 

'It was already in 1944 that, as a result of specific research on the physiology of muscle movements carries out in the [Stoke Mandeville] Centre, sports and games - darts, snooker, and wheel-chair polo - were introduced as part of the physical and social rehabilitation of the paraplegics' (13)

 

'In 1944, our facilities for specific pre-vocational training were, of course, very limited, and carpentry was the first handicraft to which, under Mr Parker's guidance, paraplegics were introduced and adjusted. Moreover, full use was made of correspondence courses in art, accountancy, banking and law, and Miss Scruton, in spite of being extremely busy with her secretarial work, volunteered to teach patients shorthand and typing. In due course, the Ministry of Pensions agreed to put pre-vocational training, as part of rehabilitation, on a wider basis, providing facilities for training in cobbling, typing and engineering, with hand-operated lathes. Later, with the assistance of Lord Roberts Workshops, clock-assembly was included, and, with the help of the Ministry of Works, draughtsmanship.' (13-14)