Your Body At Its Best Ch 2

Of course there have been some who have accomplished great things in life despite physical frailties or physical handicaps. But they are the exceptions and do not disprove the general rule. For example, St. Paul, Caesar, Pascal and Nelson, were men whose great souls and indomitable spirits could not be limited by sickness, bodily weakness, or physical handicaps.

Then there was Demosthenes, the great orator of ancient Greece, who stuttered, had weak lungs, and a harsh voice. But Demosthenes is the perfect example of the result of self-discipline and self-regimentation, for by severe and prolonged training he overcame his stuttering, built up strong lungs, and developed a speaking voice that swayed the whole Greek nation.

Other famous people from the list of the physically handicapped who made good, are: Homer, the greatest of all ancient poets, who was afflicted with blindness; Beethoven who lost his hearing; Byron, who had a club foot; Helen Keller, who was blind and could neither hear nor talk; and there are of course many, many more.

Among our contemporaries, I am reminded of Glenn Cunningham, who in March 1938 ran the fastest mile ever recorded by man - 4 minutes 4.4 seconds. When a boy he was badly burned, and his leg muscles withered and dried. It was assumed that his running days were over. But Glenn Cunningham was not finished. After years of determined and patient discipline he won the world's record in one of the hardest events in athletics.

There is G. Allen O'Neal, a 1933 graduate of the Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina, who carries on undaunted and successfully as General Agent at West Palm Beach, Florida, for a prominent life insurance company. On Christmas Day in 1953, suffering from polio, Mr. O'Neal was put into an iron lung where he remained for eight weeks. He was in the hospital for four months. Totally disabled until October 1955, he went back to work in a wheel chair. He wears braces from the waist down all the time, but carries on, nevertheless, and has parallel bars in his office and at home on which he exercises two hours daily.

There is Marjorie Schulz of Cincinnati, Ohio, who in April 1960, was selected from among nominees of one hundred and twenty-three Goodwill Industries in as many cities, to receive the award "National Goodwill Worker Of The Year," for outstanding achievement in overcoming a physical handicap. She was night supervisor of nurses at Deaconess Hospital in Cincinnati when struck down by multiple sclerosis in 1944, and she has been in a wheelchair ever since. The 38-year-old woman who painstakingly switched from a nursing career to secretarial work after the onset of her illness, now is assistant public relations director at the Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries Rehabilitation Center.

• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 1
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 3
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 4
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 5
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 6
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 7
• Your Body At It's Best - Ch 8