The Future And You |
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A few people are crippled by rheumatism. They are good material for hear-rending stories in magazines; they go well, as the saying is, in newspaper; they even form the the subject of posters 10 feet high. They make a sad picture of sound minds trapped in unsound bodies; they go on for year after years as reminders to themselves and others of the havoc that an occasionally be wrought by the worst forms of this groups of diseases, but they are still few.
If you are one of these few, there is a lot that you do for your rheumatism. It is not really those severely struck by rheumatism that need to be told this: they usually know. Those who most often need to know that something can be done are the friends of those who have been hard hit and those who, without much reason, fear that they themselves will end up as bas as the worst that they have seen. You hardly notice the many who heave recovered well from attacks of rheumatism any more than you can usually tell which of the people who pass you in the street broke legs at some time in the past. Please remember that deformity is the unusual outcome of rheumatism.
Far commoner are those whose medical notes made ten, twenty or even forty years ago say in fading ink 'Rheumatism', but who show little trace of it now. Far commoner, too, are those who have a few knuckles knobbly and stiff or who do not go out for their usual walk when there is a change of weather. Far commoner too are those who go about their daily work with rather more discomfort than most, perhaps at times a little less effectively than usual, because their rheumatism plays up from time to time.
If you are one of these many who are handicapped but by no means crippled, try to live in the knowledge that there is a lot that you can do for your rheumatism now and in the future. All of us grow older: there are some signs of wear and tear even in the joints of fir your soldiers killed in action: this does not mean, though, that we are all doomed to decay in the next few years. Life stretches before us. You and I do not know how long it is going to be, but we do not want it made day by a sinister for fear that it may raise its ugly head and strike us, crippled, to our beds. No! There is a lot that we can do for our friends with rheumatism: there is a lot more that we can enable them to do for themselves. To those who have rheumatism I leave message of hope. You yourself can do lot for your rheumatism, so that at its worst it is a nuisance to be overcome rather than a sentence to a life of gloom, and so that at its best it is no hindrance to a life free and full as ever. |
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