Life — June 20, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Just One ‘Cue HE news that Thomas Skeyhill, the “blind soldier-poet,” has had his eyesight restored by a simple osteopathic operation will probably not be received with enthusiasm by those gentlemen who, with the same spirit of progress we notice in the humble snail, hold up their hands in holy horror at the idea of osteopaths operating at the front. Thomas Skeyhill, a signaller in the Anzac forces before Gallipoli in 1913, was blinded by the blast of an exploding shell. Thus blinded, he went about lecturing over the world, achieving a great reputation. From Australia he came to America, where he inaugurated an individual drive to raise one million dollars for the Red Cross. In San Francisco he broke down, and had to be taken to a hospital. But he strug- gled through until he reached Reno, when he once more broke down. But his invincible spirit carried him on, until he finally reached Washington. In Washington he was examined by a specialist, who found that the verte- *LIFE* brae at the base of Skeyhill’s neck had been dislocated in three places, proba- bly by the same shock that had caused his blindness. It was then that a sim- ple osteopathic operation was per- formed, and the vertebrae snapped back into place. Skeyhill’s sight was almost immediately restored. For a few days he suffered from color blind- ness, and the shock of the restoration temporarily unhinged his mind, but he came around all right. He can now see normally, this being the first case, so far as known, where a complete cure of shell shock has been effected. Could anything be more reasonable than to assume that a science which restores the circulation to an afflicted area of the body, thereby giving Nature a chance to reassert herself, must of necessity be of service among the thou- sands of casualties taking place daily on the western front? Certainly when, in a particular case such as we have cited, sight is actually restored, oste- opathy cannot be dismissed even by the most blinded prejudice. To bar osteopathy from the front THE NEW RECTOR'S MOTTO “Faint heart ne'er won fair laity” 987 lines is a crime against our boys, ren- dered even more glaring in the face of President Wilson's message that all forces should work together for the common defense. Let us hope that the old-school preju- dice, along with the blind soldier from Anzac, may also have its sight restored. It Got By the Censor YOUNG wife received a letter re- cently from her husband some- where in France, which got by the cen- sor in spite of the fact that he told his exact location. The letter read: “TI traveled six hours from Paris, and am twelve miles west of Baby Sparks. Plumbers always forget to bring them. Carpenters carry them in a wooden box. But none of these are as singular as my headquarters.” After a bit of reflection the wife guessed her husband was in Toul. Baby Sparks puzzled her till a friend asked if she knew a family named Sparks. She did; the baby was named Nancy, and upon examining a map she found Nancy to be exactly twelve miles from Toul. comicbooks.com