She had some kind of vague illness that prevented her from walking (until she got to the Alm and started chugging the goat’s milk) and required regular doses of cod-liver oil. Was it TB? Consumption? Or just a bad case of 19th Century Literature Malaise?
And heck, while we’re here let’s talk about the story. I kept waiting for one of the billy goats to pee on Heidi. It’s what billy goats do. But it never happened. And what was with Miss Rottenmeier’s overwhelming terror of kittens? Freudian psychosis or just a hatred of all small cute things (witness her animosity towards Heidi)? My copy of the book keeps talking about a hole in the roof of the hayloft, through which Heidi could see the stars, and when she came back from Frankfurt her grandfather stuffed it with hay to keep the moon from shining on her while she was sleeping. But wouldn’t a hole big enough to stargaze through let in a lot of rain?
One of my favorite kid’s books, it is, although it does have occasional tendancies towards tweeness.
I always thought it was something quite manageable like asthma, with a hefty dose of Munchausen thrown in. You know, overprotection by Klara’s parents leading to a) deconditioning and b) a “sick” mindset; as evidenced by Klara’s quick recovery when away from her family and in a more physical environment.
Lord, I haven’t read Heidi in ages. I’ll have to pick up a copy.
I always figured it was a general accident/illness made worse by over-protectiveness. I think Fraulein Rottenmeier had a vested interest in keeping her ill and acting like a concerned mother, because she had set her cap for Klara’s father. Getting Klara exercise and food and fresh air and just the attitude that she wasn’t sick was what turned her around.
Surely that quote is about Heidi herself isn’t it ? When she’s sent to keep Klara sompany in the city ? I’ve not read the book in a long time but I’m sure I’m right.
As for Klara I’d always thought it was a case of a serious disease - like Rheumatic Fever - which had weakened her and then being kept cooped up in the house etc.
Like you, Cat Jones, I always assumed recovery from a serious illness - mild polio in early childhood had actually been my vague back-belief. Why polio? Probably because when I was a little kid, the idea of children in wheelchairs was linked with polio sufferers, and I just never examined the belief vis a vis Heidi.
Colin in *The Secret Garden * has whatever Klara has, btw.
I always just found it odd that she went from a pasty weakling in a bath-chair to a plump, rosy-faced walking wonder in, what, a month? Like whatever was wrong with her couldn’t have been that serious. Not that I’ve ever drank goat’s milk; for all I know it does have miraculous curative powers, although if that were the case you’d think Dr. Kellogg would have been enema-ing all his patients with it at the Battle Creek San, but I’m confident he didn’t, because I’m sure that’s the kind of thing someone would have mentioned at some point.
Maybe the fact that Heidi also sickened while she was living in the house indicates a radon leak?
Maybe Frau Rottenmeier was poisoning them with arsenic on the powdered sugar doughnuts, which she warned them not to eat because it would rot their teeth!
I thought Colin wasn’t a very healthy baby, and early on realised that he could get all sorts of attention by throwing fits, refusing to eat, and refusing to get out of bed. I figured he managed to keep himself in pretty bad condition by never getting any exercise and not eating much.
I thought Heidi’s illness was due to loneliness/homesickness, whereas Klara was suffering from general malaise of being spoiled and living in the heavily polluted (?)city.