POWER IN FALSE ARM

Evening Star, Issue 16514, 28 August 1917, Page 1

POWER IN FALSE ARM

The handinests of one-armed men when equipped with artificial limbs of the newest type astounds nobody more than themselves. Modern hands with flexible finger joints enable them to lift a plate or a- cup and saucer, to use a knife and fork, to turn a- handle, to light a- cigarette with fair 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 one-handed effort lacks the driving power of-the body behind it. A new industrial arm designed by Hobbs Inventions. Ltd., Balham, secures th> necessary co-ordination, says the ' Daily Mail.'

It ia 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 recently. 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 141b sledge-hammer 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 way his axe sent the chips from a tree trunk flying all over the room. Then he swept the floor with a broom, and showed how easy ib was to manipulate a spade in digging when it was affixed to the artificial limb, or to use a pitchfork or a rake.