Last fortnight, after reaching a record of 2,130 consecutive big-league games, Lou Gehrig, the Yankees' "Iron-Horse," went to Rochester, Minn., checked in at the Mayo Clinic to find out what ailed his slowed-up legs, his weakened grip. After a week of grilling and probing, Dr. Harold Clinton Habein gave Lou, on his 36th birthday, a sealed envelope and a sheaf of X-ray pictures. The verdict: "amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."
Commonly known as chronic infantile paralysis, this rare, creeping disease is a complete mystery to doctors. It attacks the grey matter of the spinal cord, slowly lays waste all muscles controlled by the diseased...
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