POWER IN FALSE ARM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3152, 2 August 1917, Page 5

POWER IN FALSE ARM

♦ — OVERHEAD STROKES WITH HEAVY SLEDGE-HAMMER. , The handiness of one-armed men when equipped with artificial limbs of the newest typo astounds nobody more than themselves. Modern hands with flexible finger-joints enable them to lift'a plate or a cup and saucer, to U6e a knife and fork, to turn a handle, to light a. cigarette with fnir ease, and to do most of the hundred and one things of everyday life for which two hands are indispensable. Hard manual work, where the swing of the body goes into the effort, requires, however, something: more than the ordinary artificial arm_ has hitherto been able to give. In using a cricket bat or a golf club, or in swinging a sledge-hammer, for example, a onehanded effort lacks the driving power of the body behind it. A new industrial arm designed by Hobbs Inventions, Limited, Balham, secures this necessary coordination.

It is a swivel arrangement with a variety of grips and hooks suited for different purposes, and an ex-Life Guardsman, a tall, supple-limbed young fellow, showed its possibilities at a demonstration at Balham on Saturday.. He has lost his left arm just below the shoulder, but with one of the grips of his artificial arm fastened to the shaft of a Hlb. sledgehammer, he was able to swing the hammer with ease, and he pounded lead on an anvil with sure and powerful overhead strokes. In the same wn.v his axe sent tho chips from a tree trunk flying all over the room. Then he swept the floor with a broom, and showed how easy it was to manipulate a. spade in digging when it was affixed to the artificial limb, or to uso a pitchfork or a rake.