Those children called "cerebral palsy" by the world, or "spastics" by the British, are injured in the subcortical areas that form the middle region of the brain, or the functional midbrain in The Institutes terminology. This area includes structures such as the basal ganglia, the thalamus, the cerebellum, and the area traditionally called "midbrain", which anatomically is the upper part of the brain stem above the pons.
These are the children who, if they are well enough to walk are in constant writhing motion. When they walk, your heart is in your mouth for fear they'll fall and break their necks. Their heads and faces are in constant writhing motion, and when they talk they constantly gasp for air, which results in very distorted speech that is often impossible to decipher. We all know these children. They look like each other the world over.
Everyone feels sorry for these poor demented kids, but I have lived with more than 7000 of these midbrain-injured kids, and I have never met one child who did not have above-average intelligence. They are very bright.
Many years ago, a team from the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, which is one of the great archeological museums in the world, had just returned from a dig in Greece with a great deal of statuary.
They had a display of their finds before it was opened to the public, and Dr. Temple Fay and I went. There were beautiful statues of maidens with an arm or a hand off, and as we walked through the display we came to one statue that the University had labeled "Marathon Runner," because here was a young man in a loin cloth, with every muscle standing out on his body, who looked as if he had just crossed the finish line of a marathon, gasping for breath. Looking at it Dr. Fay said, "Look at the Greek athetoid cerebral palsy."
And, of course, that's exactly what it was. The archeological staff didn't know anything about brain injury, so to them it looked like somebody finishing a marathon and gasping for breath, but he was in fact a Greek midbrain-injured person.
Years ago, when we didn't know very much and hadn't threatened anybody or scared anybody by learning what to do about brain injury, we were beloved of the Establishment and everybody else. We had been asked to have here at The Institutes a panel discussion on cerebral palsy, and we agreed. The conference was to include an eminent neurosurgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, and top-flight physical, occupational, and speech therapists. We agreed to do it.
Five days before the conference, after all the notices had been mailed and it was too late to change anything, we said, "If we're going to have a panel discussion about midbrain injury, we think we should have a midbrain-injured person on the panel. That was shocking to everybody. To many people at that time it would have been like having a meeting on jurisprudence and having a criminal on the panel.
But it was too late to cancel the conference, so they had their choice of not having the meeting or having a brain-injured person on the panel.
At that time a young man worked here who was severely injured in the midbrain. His name was Bill Wright and he went flopping about the place at a great rate. People who didn't know him would say, "Is it safe to have him working here? Won't he hurt somebody?"
The young man they were talking about was a college graduate and the editor of the National Cerebral Palsy News, plus he had invented a typewriter for midbrain-injured kids. In the United States he would have been called athetoid cerebral palsied. So we invited Bill Wright to be on the panel.
We had long, boring speeches by all of the authorities. None of them knew much about midbrain injury, so we listened to long, boring speeches. Then it was time to introduce the cerebral palsy person on the panel. I want to tell you his entire speech. It was the best speech I ever heard in my life, and by all odds the shortest.
When you put midbrain-injured people under pressure, their symptoms become much worse. If you had such a child and you wanted to put him into the worst possible circumstances, you'd say, "You know, we're so proud of how well you've done that the President of the United States wants to meet you. He's in the next room and is coming in now."
Like everybody else, a midbrain-injured child breathes faster when he is nervous, and so he breathes away his carbon dioxide. This constricts the blood vessels to the brain and less oxygen is delivered. As a result the pathology is exaggerated.
This young man knew he was representing everyone who had a midbrain injury, and for the first time in history they were going to have something to say and be heard. We couldn't have put him under greater pressure.
Let me tell you his speech.
When we introduced him, he stood up with a book in his hand. He held up the book with great difficulty and said, "Is this a good book or a bad book?" Then he sat down.
There was a dead silence, and you could see everybody thinking, "Is that his speech? How do I know if it is a good book or a bad book? I only saw the cover."
That's the best speech I ever heard in my life. It is the best description of a midbrain-injured kid that I ever heard in my life. It was superb. And heaven knows it was the shortest speech I ever heard in my life.
"Don't judge a book by its cover," was Bill's message.
I've been telling that story to hurt kids and the parents of hurt kids for 40 years, and a while back my assistant came to me and said, "There's a man here who wants to see you, named Wright. He says he is an old friend of yours."
I asked, "Is he a midbrain?" and she said, "Oh, is he!" and I said, "Send him in."
When Bill came in he apologized for bothering me, and I said, "How long has it been since we've seen each other? and he said, "Twenty years."
I said, "It's OK for you to bother me every twenty years.
Then I explained, "You know, Bill, I tell all the parents about you. I talk about you once a month," and he said, "What do you say?
I asked him, "Do you remember the day you represented all the cerebral palsy people on that panel, with all the big-wheel experts?" and he said, "Oh, yes, I remember that."
"Do you remember what you said?"
"No, I don't remember."
"I'll tell you what you did. When you stood up, you had a book in your hand..." and Bill said, "Aha, I bet I asked them if it was a good book or a bad book."
I said, "You do remember it?" and he said, "No, but I just thought that would be a good thing to have said."
What a brilliant young man.
Bill's married now. We never did fix him because we didn't know how then, we weren't smart enough. I would sure like to have him now as a three-year-old, but I can't turn the clock back for him. But he's married and his wife has a midbrain injury more severe than his, and he takes care of her. He's very proud of himself because he earns his own living and nobody helps him. He runs a front-end loader in a nursery, and for a hobby he writes learned papers.
He had come to see me because he had written a paper on Thomas Jefferson, and since he knew that Thomas Jefferson is one of my heroes he brought it and asked me if I would read and critique the paper for him.
Bill is very pleased with himself, as well he might be, with a wife he takes care of, and running a front-end loader, and writing brilliant academic papers for a hobby. The sadness is that he should be writing scholarly papers for a living and running a front-end loader for a hobby.
Still, he's extremely proud of himself and he jolly well ought to be. I thought you'd like to know about that speech.
Post Script: As wonderful as Bill's story is, it wouldn't do for today. Today our objective is to make midbrain-injured kids physically as well as anyone else–and considerably above average intellectually.
