NEW LIMBS WHILE YOU WAIT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 181, 9 June 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW LIMBS WHILE YOU WAIT.

AX AFTERXOOX IX THE HUM A REPAIR FACTORY. (London ''Express.") Three of us fat at the end of the lon room. At the other end were a grou of soldiers wearing the too familia hospital uniform of blue. At a wor lrom my neighbour, one of them hian I th:' length of the hall and fnlutci "'Well, what is it?" I was aslu-c Wary, after what I had already sec! 1 hesitated, and the soldier kindly 0! I'gvd with another march. I was positive now. "The left," said. -My questioner laughed. "Wronj again it's the right. Xo Hies on that what!'" Then, turning to the soldier " V lion did you get :t, my lad?" ''East Saturday, sir." " Quito conitt'ortablr?" " Quite, sir. thank you." "All right; passed.'' And the sol dier stepped behind tor the final regis, tration before leaving to take up a new job in llie great, busy world. It was the weekly inspection after, noon at Roehampton Hospital. Outside of polo circles, who ever heard cf Ttoihampton before the war? Xow, thanks to Queen Mary's Hospital, thou, sands of men the wide world over will for ever recall it as the home of modern miracles. The soldier 1 had seen march was wearing ;i wooden leg. which be had possessed rather ltvs than a week. So marvellously had the natural limb been replaced that, closely as I watched, I was unab.e to judge which was the real and which the art fici.il leg. Xo one out of the secret would have guessed that either was other than Dame X'ature s own.

WONDERFFL RESFLTS. 1 Another maimed v,"ap;or was culled for inspection. He cnine more gingerly, leaning heavily on two sticks. "Try without the sticks; there now, carefully." called the inspecting surgeon. " Why, you do better without them."

"It's the f'rst time, sir," snid tho soldier, by way of apology for his hesitation. and ho certainly >cemcd easier in action without the sticks.

Twenty men, or more, marched by. Each was watched with critical eye. One was set asid'--t!io leg was not perfect; some slight adjustment was needed. Not all the other men walked with the same confidence ns the best, but—they really walked. Temperament, one recognised, accounted for some ot the difference. A week or so ot longer uractice 4 nd most o7 them would he remade men.

''Eighty per cent of them," said fh# surgeon, Mr T. Opens'iaw, "go straight from here to work, and good work too. It's their own fault if they do not keep their berths, for "they are found among I hose anx*ou« fo help c.ir wounded soldiers in every possible way." This was said not in any «ense as suggesting tint the men come short of expectation, but t'> show that these at least who pass through Roehampton get what they deserve of their country—the best procurable

"We had to go to America for the best artificial limbs," said Mr Openshaw. "because the need had never arisen in this country on the same scale. There is no workmen's compensation law on the other side. Any mail can wander on a railway l ne at his own risk and get kno-ke'd down. Machinery and motors run at nigh speed, and accidents are happening all tho time. In Chicago alone, 1 believe, there ar.» thirty thousand men with artificial limbs, and the result has been the springing up of a great and scientific- industry. Willow—the best, m(Teed almost the only wood for the purpose, because of its grain, which stands all weather and perspirat'on without swelling or shrinking—is specially grown there for the purpose. It could, of course, hp grown in England, but the need for if has not been on a largo si;ile hitherto.

DITLICATXO NATURE. "Every soldier who goes out of this institution nets tlii' very best lirnh thnfc money can procure for him." Mr Opensliiiw -peaks with, great authority ng

tlii-; matter. He lias been for five years one of the leading experts associated with the Suig : cal Aid Societv.

1 was shown over the Tanger limb factory itself by Mr. C. W. Thomas, the manager. It is a wonderfully fascinating place. Here one sees the r.ctu a I work of duplicating by art too work of nature. It is not a case of finding seme means of putting a maimed man into some makeshift sort of occupation or existence. It means that in nine canes out of ten he can take up his threads where he dropped them before; iie can run as well as walk; he can dance, too. Mr. Thomas, himself a leg-weaver—] had to ask him to make sure—demonstrated this beyond question.

I lifted one of the l : mbs. Tt weighed perhaps eight or nine pounds. "The weight, of course, depends on the place of the amputation." said Mr. Thomas. " But as a general rule it is about onethird of the actual weight of a real leg. Every case is made to its own specification. We .-ee the man three tiie.es altogether. Then if, after he has* worn the leg, he liuds it uncomfortable! or to need adjust.ng, i:e has only to come back. But very few do. It's like artificial teeth. At first they are strange. Soon the wearer ol a goto! set forgets they are not real.

STICK'S WANTED. •' Alt iv,' arc from America," added Mr. Thomas, ''we arc, of course, an English company on this side, unci.-'! Mr. Lloyd Ok-orge'- Act, and are alrcadv training Englishmen in our art. W" have thorn hero working at alternate benches to our own skilled nil 11: two of them are men who came lir-t to us as patients or customers to he lilted. One has lost not only a leu hut an arm, hut is coming on splendidly.' The story of the foundat on of the Hauler industry is worth recording. Mr If anger was a soldie- in the American Cixil War. He fought for the South, and was the first man on cither Mdo—so it i« claimed—to lose a leg. Anyway, he set to work to devise a suh-titute, and succeeded ~o well that 'cores of others came to h'-m for simi ;M j eli 'f Croat improvements have, ■if course, heeii effected since that t>n.<, (iitv-fonr years ago. __ There arc wonderful artificial arms and hands to he seen nt Roehampton, as well a™ legs. Hut the »e need a story to themselves.