What Really Made Mary Ingalls Go Blind? (Hint: It Wasn't Scarlet Fever)

Dr. Beth Tarini was a medical school student when talk turned to scarlet fever. Scarlet fever — that's what made Mary Ingalls go blind, she thought. But her medical training had already taught her that wasn't possible. She started to wonder — what did cause Mary's blindness? As she became a doctor, the question stayed in her mind.

It would take another decade, but in 2012, working with research assistant Sarah Allexan — today a physician — they came up with an answer to that question that was so plausible, they co-wrote an article about it that was published in the medical journal Pediatrics in 2013.

Episode 20 of Land of Laura welcomes guests Dr. Beth Tarini and Dr. Sarah Allexan to look back on that article, their collaboration on it, and the historical and medical research that led to their conclusion on what exactly may have caused Mary Ingalls to go blind.

Pediatrics: Blindness in Walnut Grove: How Did Mary Ingalls Lose Her Sight?

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/131/3/404/31000/Blindness-in-Walnut-Grove-How-Did-Mary-Ingalls?redirectedFrom=fulltext

===================Theme music is "Roll the Old Chariot Along" from the album Green Willow by the Dreadnaughts. Used with permission.====================

Little House series

Little House on the Prairie

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Rose Wilder Lane

scarlet fever

Mary Ingalls blind