An iconic piece of American artwork depicts a medical mystery.
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Since the first public viewing of this famed painting in 1948, the nature of the disabling disease afflicting the eponymous Christina has been the subject of vigorous debate among art historians and physicians alike. The painting depicts a young woman, thin of frame with emaciated limbs, lying in a sun-dappled field and reaching longingly towards a gray farmhouse on a distant hill.
In 1896, at the early age of three, Anna Christina Olson had trouble walking. Her balance was off, she walked with a notably unusual waddle even for a toddler, and her mother crafted knee pads to buffer her tumbles . These difficulties of gait and balance would worsen as she aged, a progressive deterioration of function, causing the girl to lose strength first in her legs and then eventually in her arms and hands before she became nearly immobile .
Polio has long been the leading diagnosis for Christina’s illness. In the 1890s, polio epidemics began appearing with terrifying regularity, causing havoc every summer. The virus was a haunting specter, a parental nightmare that infected indiscriminately through fecally-contaminated water.
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