Theodore David DeVita was an American boy with severe aplastic anemia requiring him to live in a sterile hospital room for the last eight years of his life.
11 Facts About Ted DeVita
1.
2.
The "laminar airflow room" gave Ted DeVita a living space the size of a normal bedroom.
3.
Ted DeVita was able to walk around and participate in many normal activities but could be touched only with gloved hands.
4.
Ted DeVita lived surrounded by plastic sheeting containing a door-sized space through which sterilized objects, including food, clothing, and books, and occasionally doctors and nurses, could pass in and out.
5.
Ted DeVita was surrounded by a "curtain" of air, a steady outflow of positive air pressure to expel potential pathogens.
6.
From a later review of medical notes, his younger sister, Elizabeth Ted DeVita-Raeburn, learned the staff saw Ted DeVita as alternately "hostile, angry, and cheery".
7.
Ted DeVita's sister remembers that the only time DeVita was not stared at was at a Star Trek convention.
8.
Ted DeVita was 14 when the film, unauthorized by his family, was released.
9.
Ted DeVita died in 1980 at NIH Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
10.
Ted DeVita's death was not primarily due to aplastic anemia, but was caused by iron overload from too many transfusions.
11.
Treatment for Ted DeVita's disease has become much more successful, with a cure rate of up to 80 percent.