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below C6—a former beauty queen—who was engaged at the time of her car accident.
Her fiance married her after her discharge from hospital and she had a child by him, but
already at that time he had formed an association with another girl, who had also become
pregnant by him. He left his tetraplegic wife shortly afterwards and married the other
girl.
It has been our experience that paralysed women as well as paralysed men, whose
partners have left them for one reason or another, have usually taken the situation well
and, as already mentioned, quite a number have married again. There was only one
exception—a psychopathic non-traumatic paraplegic who, although not included in these
statistics, may be mentioned here. He had married a girl in haste and had become
increasingly depressed by the unfaithfulness of his wife, and when she eventually left
him, refusing to return, he committed suicide.
Children.
Finally, a few words on the problem of children of paraplegics and tetraplegics.
Our statistics on traumatic paraplegics clearly show that the generalized pessimism of
many members of the medical profession regarding potency and sterility in paraplegic
men and motherhood in paraplegic women is unfounded. In a previous paper (1963)
—'The paraplegic patient in pregnancy and labour'—I have already discussed the ques
tion of motherhood of paraplegic women and have given evidence that, in spite of their
severe disablement, they can bear normal children and look after them. Moreover, I
have pointed out that confinement by Caesarean section should be limited to extremely
rare cases.
With regard to potency and sterility, I refer to the previous chapter. As shown by
the present statistics, it is obvious that men with complete and, in particular, incomplete
lesions can sire their own children. Already in 1944, when the question of marriage of
paraplegic soldiers arose, I could not accept the general attitude that paraplegics should
be dissuaded from marrying, and the following case was a great encouragement in this
respect. A young soldier with a cauda equina lesion below L5 was admitted with a
suprapubic cystostomy from the battlefront. He had just been married before being
called up to the Army, and after he received his severe injury he wanted to give his young
wife a divorce, because he thought it would be unfair to her to remain tied to him. I
persuaded him to wait until the suprapubic cystostomy was closed, which we succeeded
in doing, and he made a good re-education of his bladder as well as an excellent
adjustment to his remaining disability, being able to walk. He was sent home on leave,
which he accepted with extreme reluctance, but after his return he was a dramatically
changed man because he had realized that he could continue his marital activities. To
conclude the story, he produced his first child within a year and on discharge home took
up a job in a shoe-repairing department, having been a bricklayer before. One day I
received a terse telegram, 'Twins, Sir—Bill'! Altogether, he had had four children.
As with some able-bodied married couples, it may take several years before preg
nancy is achieved. In this respect, my first patient—a soldier with a cauda equina lesion
below L2 on the right and L3 on the left, who was admitted on 3 February 1944—may
be quoted. He, too, was admitted with a suprapubic cystostomy, which was successfully
closed, and his urine became sterile. He was married just before the war, and his wife was
