ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15489, 17 January 1916, Page 5

ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.

REPLACING LEGS AND ARMS. COMFORT FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS. Writing on November 20th to a friend in Ashburton, from the Weymouth (England) Hospital Camp, Corporal L. G. Marsh (late of the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Association), says:— .1 am enclosing a letter written to Miss Williams (late of Hawke's Bay), who is working with the War Contingent Association. I think it is a letter that would be well to be made public, as iti would give great comfort to those who have friends or relations who have lost limbs. The letter is as follows:— Dover House, Roehampton, S.W. Dear Miss Williams, —I should like you to cheer up any men you meet in I , the hospitals who nave lost legs and j _ arms, as they really have not lost many : lof the pleasures of life. If you lose , your leg above the knee, you will never, i be able to run again, probably, or be

able to go upstairs without a stiff leg. But one can walk or ride perfectly. I have only had my leg about three days, and I can walk without a stick, and get on and off buses perfectly. In fact, I always travel' on the top of :i bus. If a man loses his leg below the knee-joint, he'lias lost practically nothing, as he will bo able' to run, jump, fide, and do any mortal thing that he has ever done. I was talking to a man who has lost his leg below the knee and has been wearing an artificial limb for some years; I can never tell which_ is his sound leg and which his artificial one. He did some tricks on the horizontal-bars -the -other day for niy amusement; swinging himself right into the air, he landed on his artificial fopt only, not bringing the sound one to the ground at all, and he told me it did not hurt him or make him feel in the" least uncomfortable. Another man, who had his leg .amputated through the hip-joint, ran 50 yards, but it was rather a laboured performance, and it is very exceptional for a man to bo able to run when he has lost his knee. C)f course, what a man can do on an artificial limb very depends on himself. You were also asking me about artificial arms yesterday. There is a wonderful arm made by a man named Games, in America, which they are fitting men with here. A man only needs about two inches of' stump from the shoulder to have these arms fitted, and the arm is manipulated from' the shoulder. Carnes himself, who makes tiiis arm, has, I know, only one arm, j and I believe none, but of that I would not be quite certain. But his artificial hand and arm are so good that he can moke arms for other people with it. i With his arm and hand a eixpenny- | piece can be picked up off the billiard table, and ho can pull a single hair out of" his head with it. But, of course, these parlour tricks take practice. Carnes's arm was amputated near' the shoulder. * But then, again, if one has an elbow-joint, the fitting of the hand is even more satisfactory. > I met a fellow yesterdav in a hospi- ■ tal in London whom I was able to cheer up, as he had lost a leg, and rather thought he was crippled for life, until ; he saw me sailing along on an artificial I limb. I was walking on grass, and he could not- tell which leg was the wooden one. though, of course, he could see I was a little lame on one.—Yours sin-

cerely, Rupert W. Westmacott. I P.S.—Every man who comes to HoeJ hampton House to be fitted With a I limb does not leave until the committee has found him work.