Lady Victoria Campbell

8 CHILDHOOD AND HOME
" Poor Victoria has a very strange attack of rheu-
matism, without fever. She is completely disabled,
and cannot move her legs. Dr. Allan says it is not at
all uncommon, and thinks she will be quite well in
two or three weeks, at most. In other ways she
seems quite well. She does not mind being stationary
as much as most children would." There follows a
later letter where the diagnosis was more accurate :
" We went with Victoria to Brodie. I think it is
very much the same view as Simpson's. He has
seen many worse cases recover, and many of non-
recovery. He calls it, as Simpson did, Infantile
Paralysis. He thinks the gouty element has to do
with it — not scarlet fever. Blistering would have
been of no use. He recommends very small doses
of mercury and rubbing, but it is clearly a case
where man can do little."
From that time till her fourteenth year her life
was bounded by the efforts to treat successfully the
condition of complete lameness in which the attack
had left her. The treatment was always slow,
and necessitated her being near the various exponents
of the cures. Liverpool, Brighton, and London
were the places in which she had to live, and she was
often separated for many months from the rest of the
family. There was much suffering, very literally,
at the hands of many physicians, and one surgical
operation, which in the light of modern knowledge
would never have been performed, rendered a com-
plete cure hopeless.
The most successful and longest treatment, ex-