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Show DREAM COME TRUE Nation's Parents Join Together In Fight Against Cerebral Palsy J ' 1 A' " 1 - . : , i ft ' H ! J ! if '.V'- ',( . .J This is the first of two articles on the United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Associa-tions, Inc., and the work to which the organization is dedicated. The seoond article will appear next week. The United Cerebral Palsy Association, As-sociation, Inc., recently celebrated its first birthday. Probably never before in America's history has a national movement grown up as spontaneously from parents as has the united fight to conquer cerebral palsy. It was born of their love and determination deter-mination that their stricken children chil-dren should not share the tragic fate similar children had suffered suf-fered since the beginning of time. Despite all the progress in other fields, cerebral palsy in the 20th century stood out as a baffling mystery even to most physicians until a series of oddly-assorted events suddenly turned the tide. The three outstanding ones were a polio epidemic, a national radio program and a small informative pamphlet issued by a manufacturer of copper kettles. The polio epidemic was in 1916, the nation's worst. Into consulting and waiting rooms of many physicians physic-ians surged parents with children crippled by a type of paralysis. Many a heart was broken, as doctors doc-tors shook their heads after examining examin-ing these children. Little or nothing could be done. Since Biblical times - Denise Darcel, stage and screen star, is shown cutting the birthday cake at the first anniversary anni-versary supper of the United Cerebral Palsy Association recently. re-cently. With Miss DarceU Is UCPA president Leonard H. Goldstein. the palsied had been with us. Some doctors said these children had Little's disease so named from Dr. William John Little, pioneer English orthopedist, who first described the condition in 1861. But with that polio epidemic in 1916, the spark of medical curiosity, to which mankind is indebted for many advances in human welfare, was beginning to burn. In Boston, two physicians decided to investigate investi-gate further into this condition. From that beginning grew the body of knowledge which we have today on cerebral palsy. FOR ONE OF THOSE Boston physicians, it was virtually the start of a lifetime work: Dr. Winthrop Morgan Phelps pursued the elusive trail with further work at Yale university, uni-versity, and 21 years later, he felt that enough knowledge as to treatment treat-ment and diagnosis had been developed devel-oped for the opening of a training center for doctors, therapists, teachers, teach-ers, medical social workers and psychologists. The spark that grew to a bright light of hope penetrated into the homes of a few parents. In California Cali-fornia a group of them banded together; to-gether; three years later the association as-sociation for cerebral palsy grew up spontaineously in New York City. In 1946 there were enough local groups to form the New York state association for cerebral palsy. Then, one night in February, 1947, a brighter spotlight of hope fell in many still-darkened homes. It was a radio program, "Love Is A Doctor", Doc-tor", part of a nation-wide series. "Exploring the Unknown". The writer knew his subject his heart was poured into the script that Alvin Boretz wrote because every word he wrote was about his own son. So tremendous was the flood of inquiries in-quiries that the sponsor, a copper manufacturing company, commissioned commis-sioned the writing and publication of a small informative pamphlet on cerebral palsy. Swiftly now more groups were formed throughout the nation. They corresponded with each other, and discussed forming a united national front against the common enemy. . In February, 1949, 12,000 people assembled from the United States, Canada, Europe and South America to attend the first cerebral palsy conference. In the spring of 1949, a small group of women proceeded to raise a large portion of the "seed money" to help start UCPA. By July 1949 a sufficient amount had been raised to launch the association. |