The Key West Citizen Newspaper, March 8, 1947, Page 3

* REN OETA Be Rem A Pe I ee THE DISABLED _|Mrs. Sullivan i FIRST STEPS—Maureen Egan, 5. walks to Dr. George Deaver. By SHERRY BOWEN Ap Newsfeatures Writer EW YORK. _Millions of Ameriegns are helpless fig ert liv- | ing on public or pee chazity when they ity heir own livings, says Dr Rusk of the Baruch Commitiee.on Physictl Medicing> Dr. Rusk is the physician who originated the Air Force's itating disabled soldiers. cessful during the war that oth-y4%—-——____________-__ | er U.S. services adopted it and Ly by: the’ training, learn to, earn | program for reh it is being used to the Veterans’ Administration. Now Rusk is chairman of the subcommittee on ‘civilian “fe- habilitation centers for the Baruch Committee and head of the world’s first Department of Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine at New York Univer- sity. He is also associate editor of the New York Times. After’ the war, Dr. Rusk de-! ‘ ¢lined to return to his St. Louis! -medical wanted to help provide the same!chair and balances practice because RN TO EARN Director Of © Public Safety Mrs. Mary Sullivan of Tampa jhas been. appointed safety and sanitary director for the Florida Railroad Commission. Chairman W. B. Douglass, in «announcing her appointment, said she will be | MRS. MARY SULLIVAN | responsible for training commis- sion inspectors in safety and sani- itary rules governing motor bus jand truck operators. Mrs. Sullivan has‘ been secre- | tary to thé general freight agent land the president of Tamiami | "Trail Tours for five years, and be- fore that was in the welfare de- partment in Tampa. She has been chairman of the school boy safety patrol of Hillsborough county, and has been active in _fatfairs of the American Legion | Auxiliary, the Hillsborough coun- |ty Democratic Committee and the | Parent-Teacher Association. | She will make her headquar- 'ters in Tampa, but will travel the state, ‘instructing inspectors ‘in (highway safety and bus and rail- way station sanitation. Water hyacinths grow so thick- | ly in the Clarence River in Aus- | tralia that flood time rafts, of the plant sometimes 400 yards across | float down river past Grafton car- | rying snakes, rabbits and foxes. | sally: available, the New York fe eel jfor Crippled and _ Dis- ab says ‘ that 97 percent of proper 'seridusly- “handicapped — people ard L,| Could*be rehabilitated to the point at +> bwhere: they: could have:some gain- \ful- employment: © Most:.of these [ean do full time. work, Dr. Rusk lt proved sO suc-| | Says. But even where it is only ‘Partial the ‘gain ig ,enormous, “If that the yetains only a little mo- / @st any (tion in one arm-can be.taught. to Amerigan: bedroom, *''with an (fold paper and earn three dollars exasperated parent coming in to {4 week, he is transformed from a tell him to stop trying silly heipless invalid who must accept stunts and get on with his everything from others to an in- dressing. idependent personality who can At Bellevue, the boy with one [buy ice cream for his grandchild hand missing does the “stunt” | and his own pipe tobacco.” in all seriousness with some of | Although the disabled some- the best medical brains of the (times have difficulty finding jobs, country to help him. Dr. Rusk’s surveys indicate they A pretty young woman raises }actually do better work than nor- shoestrings with fee: hand | might be found in | | | | he herself slowly from a_ wheeled) mal people. They try harder and herself onjsenses and muscles developed to kind. of * training for civilian in-|crutches. She moves forward, the|do the work of missing or useless valids' as is available for service heavy braces on her legs clanking | parts often do well in specialized people. is many times larger than that paralyzed from the upper part of ! among. veterans. He estimates her chest down. ha there: are 23 million handicapped ;taught to use her remaining use- Americans. There were 19,000 wartime amputation cases in the U. S. armed, forces. In the same pe- tiod.there were 120,000 civilian amputations. And 30,000 such cases:a,year is considered nor- mal.! There were 1,500 soldiers inded in the war and 60,060 civilian: blinded in the same ae There were 260.000 per- janently disabled in war serv- ns jand 1,250,000 civilians were handicapped during the war years. About 0,000 Americans are disabled der year from accident aloni And this does not include those crippled by diseases such as arthritis, tuber- culosis and heart trouble. He says the civilian job,as her feet drag along. She is| tasks. Production is as much as 22 She has been} percent higher, accident rates are lower because the disabled ful muscles to take care of her-| are more careful, there is less | self and doctors say that after / labor turnover and less absen- Lyearsrin bed she is ready to leave) teeism. These people's work is lithe hospital, as soon as her has. | an important part of their lives Sand’ ca" find A home itor the. |: and they. take care of their jobs. ‘family. © t : Sometimes, however, Rusk ad- | A parade of paralytics, ampu-| mits . companies . have? trouble, itees ‘ and. : otherwise disabled | mostly when they employ Randi-, | people use hospital facilities fight-' capped people from a_ sense of: ing their way back to usefulness | pity. He urges that employment 1and competence. “We teach them | be sought and given because the to .use what: they ‘have. Every | disabled employee can do the , time. we find a muscle that can be; work as well or better than the 1 used, we-use it and train it,” says|next fellow. Dr. George 'G. Deaver of the uni- | That does not mean that no iversity medical staff. special provision should be made | It usually costs between $300,/o0n the job. The aids can be very jand $500 a year to maintain a'simple, like a shelf installed be- disabled person. Yet $300 worth!hind the bench of a man who of training in each case will per- | jcould not sit down because his Although Congress set up the!mit most of them to earn their | hip joints were immobile. Resting U.S. Office of Vocational Rehabili-! lown living. jagainst the shelf he could work tation in 1920, it was not until the} Dr. Rusk insists that the (all day. Another firm hasa special law was amended in 1943 that ef-| fective work could be done in the | kind of training Dr. Rusk wants, | Even now it is estimated that the federal agency reaches only one- twentieth of those who might | some agencies are equipped to benefit and Dr. Rusk suspects that| handle that type of treatment, even that estimate is too low. The | they are seldom available for | U.S. office estimates there are! the vast majority of those who 2,000,000 Americans eligible for | might benefit. benefits under the 1943 law. But | whole man must be treated, his department for the aged who do attitudes, aptitudes, ambitions | good work but are not harried by and social relations as well as speed competition. the specific difficulties attribut- | Hundreds of firms employed | able to his disability. Although | handicapped people during the war. Among many others, Rusk | says, outstanding records were made in the Ford, Caterpillar, Westinghouse and Bell ‘Tele- phone companies, But large firms employ a small Among the agencies which Dr. Dr. Rusk is confident many more|Rusk believes are doing good!fraction of Americans and most might be helped. twork are the Cleveland Rehabili- of the handicapped must seek Federal aid is given through | tation Center, the Milwaukee!|employment in small firms, Rusk state and local agencies. And Dr. | Curative Workshop, the Monte-|says. He cites especially the Rusk ‘says it is severely handi-}fiore Tuberculosis Sanatorium, the}Georg Barr Co. of Chicago run capped by lack of specialized;}Warm Springs Foundation and by an amputee and a deaf-mute schools, shops and expert advice'new centers in San Francisco: ;with 130 handicapped employes in local communities. Now the! , Bridgeport, Conn.; and Wilming- pons of 150; the Edward D. Levy new New York University dep art- | ton, Del. Programs have been|Smoking Pipe Co., started to ment and Bellevue Hospital “in'planned or started in Chicago;/help the handicapped, but which New York are cooperating with’ Detroit; the Baruch Committee in devel-/N. C.; Boston and Minneapolis.!A. I. oping a model rehabilitation cen- | |Preliminar y steps are being taken | Brooklyn, ter. A boy, intent on tying his. Kansas City; Durham, | | proved richly profitable, and the Rhodes camera shop in run by a cripple and iin about 30 other communities. ‘employing one handicapped and If training centers were univ yer-! one normal man, a man so crippled with arthritis, . he Dela & ¢