APPARATUS FOR ARMLESS MEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18446, 6 January 1922, Page 6

APPARATUS FOR ARMLESS MEN.

A wonderful apparatus for armless men, invented during the war period by a working gasfitter of Edinburgh, Mr Thomson, has been exhibited at the Society of Arts, London. Sir ' James Cantlie, the eminent surgeon, and the founder of the College of Ambulance, who spoke about the Thomson machine, said that nothing of the kind had ever been seen before. He mentioned the case of a lad whose gfeat misfortune it was to have both arms torn off by machinery in a factory. Some months later he was sent off to Edinburgh, where Mr Thomson very kindly put him up in his humble abode, and set, to work to teach the boy. That was a Sunday morning, and by 1 o’clock on Monday the boy was able to eat his dinner and smoke a cigarette by the Thomson instrument. The instrument consists of two long, tapering steel digits, which are manipulated by the feet from a treadle under a table. The extraordinary thing about the particular case sent to Mr Thomson was, added the lecturer, that that poor lad' was not only armless, but had never learned to write, and was Wind in one eye. Incredible as it seemed, within a short time Mr Thomson taught the lad to write with either pen or pencil, and today he could copy a letter quite well. Within a few months more he would be able to read and typewrite quite well. Mr Thomson hoped to improve upon the present machine to enable a person to use a hammer or scissors and do certain work. The experiments performed in illustration of these facts > were received With loud applause.