The Pope's Illness

Around the world all week long ran a quiet concern: the Pope was gravely ill.

It began with what the Vatican paper, L'Osservatore Romano, called "a slight indisposition." Pius XII, close to his 78th birthday (March 2), had been afflicted with an attack of hiccups, at first sporadic, then almost incessant and accompanied by a slight fever. But he carried on through his normal day: rising at about 6, saying Mass, and working until near 2 in the morning.

After four days, the hiccuping subsided and he had his first good night's rest. He sent for his car to take him to the Vatican gardens for a walk. But when he finally came down to the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, bundled snugly in his white, fur-lined robe, he took a long look at the lowering winter sky and waved the car away. He returned to his apartments and went to work again--until 9:30 that evening.

The next day he was worse. Weak and miserable, with stomach cramps and nausea, he was confined to his old-fashioned brass-knobbed bed in the third-floor corner chamber of the palace, while his physicians checked him meticulously to try to find out what was wrong. They seemed to find nothing organically amiss, attributed his illness basically to age and overwork. At week's end, the Pope seemed improved. Though still very weak, he was taking more food, it was announced, was able to hold hour-long conferences with top Vatican officials.

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