Word: lodha
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...heart continued to beat and his circulatory, respiratory and alimentary systems to function. That was in September 1944. Lodha's stupor lasted more than seven years, a fact that makes it extraordinary in medical history (most stupors last only a few months at most). During this time he never moved his limbs, opened his eyes or uttered a word. His sensations and deep reflexes were gone...
Suddenly, on the evening of Jan. 4, 1952, Bhopalchand Lodha's temperature shot up from another attack of malaria. The next day it went down, then up again, then down. His fingers began to move slightly and, a few days later, his toes. Finally his eyes moved. A month later he could turn his head and swallow food. After several more months, his vision was restored, but he could not recognize his children for the changes that seven years had wrought in them. It took him a year to regain complete consciousness...
...Lodha had been exonerated of the old charges while he lay in the stupor, but he took the news calmly. He became bright and cheerful once more. He could remember nothing of his seven-year sleep, was unaware that his father had died in the same house a few years earlier...
After studying his case, Bombay's Dr. Nalinkant Sunderji Vahia concluded that Lodha had suffered a catatonic stupor caused by a suppressed aggressive attitude toward the chief minister as they talked on the telephone. Without his family's remarkable care, Lodha might not have lived long. Yet doctors believe that victims of stupor respond more quickly if removed from their usual surroundings. Had Bhopalchand Lodha been treated in a modern hospital, they think, he might not have lost seven years of his life...
Last week, slightly bent from osteoarthritis after his long inactivity, Lodha passed his 57th birthday with his family and-seeming neither tense nor nervous-awaited a hearing in which the state will be the defendant. He is suing to recover more than $8,000 in damages...