.png)
Perhaps, aside from his brilliance, Mabini is best renowned for his legs (or lack thereof). According to medical documents and autopsies, Mabini had polio in 1895 and lost the use of his legs right before the 1896 Revolution. However, his crucial function as a Revolutionary War adviser and his political ascension in government eventually embellished the man's life, giving rise to many tales of how he lost the use of his legs.
According to common myths, he became crippled after assisting a Frenchwoman. Mabini raced out to catch her horse after it had escaped from her stables in the middle of a storm. According to the tale, he soon became ill and paralyzed; other accounts even claim that he fell from the horse while riding it back. Regardless, none of Mabini's biographers have chosen to cite it, casting doubt on its credibility.
According to another version, Mabini's illness was a reoccurring one since childhood. He used to hike to and from school in highland Tanauan, rain or shine. This, combined with his numerous scrapes and falls due to the terrain, and his practice of having a bath once he arrived home every day, resulted in physical chills and nausea. Mabini never recovered, and when he was a young man in Manila, his illness reappeared. Although there is absolute doubt that polio caused his paralysis, there is scant proof that he had the disease prior to receiving it in 1895.
Perhaps the best story is one that comes from his own friends. It starts with Mabini, though a titan of the mind, knowing nothing of the joys of the flesh. He had a friend that he frequently visited at his home, and came to know this friend’s sister, who was much younger than Mabini. During one of his frequent visits, a storm broke out and Mabini was persuaded to stay the night in his friend’s house. In the middle of the night, he woke up to realize that he had been trapped by his friend’s sister. Worse, her parents were also in on it. Worse still, was that his own body went along with it, as well. They could take away everything from him, but they’ll never take away his virginity, he thought. Mabini knew what to do. He jumped out from the window, taking a bad fall before running away in the middle of the storm. The injury and the illness from the rain contributed to his paralysis.
But on a post from Ambeth Ocampo on February 5, 2021, It was stated thatIn 1980, the body of the "Sublime Paralytic" was exhumed for an autopsy that determined the cause of his disability as polio. Not syphilis, as insinuated by the malicious.
"One of my prized possessions are strands of Mabini's hair, a reminder of what it is to give one's life for the emergence of the nation." he added.
Comments