810 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



limbs conceal the fact from 

 all except their most intimate 

 friends. Some wearers of 

 such imitations can play ball, 

 climb ladders, enjoy hunting 

 and fishing, skate, and in 

 many other ways take part 

 in the affairs of business and 

 pleasure. The catalogues of 

 manufacturers of wooden 

 arms and legs contain so 

 many testimonials from 

 wearers who seem pleased 

 with the substitutes, that the 

 reader is inclined to doubt 

 whether they should be 

 classed with the unfortunate. 

 Much more is heard of arti- 

 ficial legs than of arms. 

 That is because the loss of 

 a leg is a much more serious 

 matter than the loss of an 

 arm, and the one-legged man 

 is at a greater disadvantage 

 in the ordinary affairs of 

 life than the man is who has 

 only one arm. the old reliable crutch 



The false limb is not a The crutch is considered to be an artificial limb and is so listed in statis- 



, . . , T tics of manufacture. It has been called the first aid to the crippled. 



modern invention. JNO One The article is made in several styles and the buyer may pay for style 



* , ,. r as well as for service. 



knows when the first came 



into use, but they are mentioned in writings hundreds, 

 even thousands of years old. The beginnings were doubt- 

 less crude 



A LATHE UNIQUE IN ITS MECHANISM 



There ire lathes which shape gun stocks, shoe lasts, 

 and wooden doll heads, but the above cut represents 

 one even more specialized. It shapes the interior 

 of wooden legs, down almost to millimeter measure- 

 ments. Few machines equal it in accuracy of work 

 }'. w t- invented by the J. E. Hanger Artificial 

 Limb Company, Washington, District of Columbia. 



make shifts. 

 American In- 

 dians cut forked poles for 

 crutches and other sav- 

 ages probably resorted to 

 that or to other devices to 

 assist cripples in getting 

 over the ground. The 

 crutch or the staff was the 

 real invention and all that 

 has followed may be con- 

 sidered as improvement 

 and development. There 

 are records of highly ar- 

 tistic arms made of wood 

 centuries ago. It seems 

 to have been more difficult 

 to make a successful arm 

 than a leg, and it is some- 

 what the same yet, but 

 that is because an arm is 

 required to perform more 

 functions than a leg. 



Some persons, on in- 

 sufficient evidence, have 

 made the claim that no 



artificial arm is now pro- 

 duced that is as perfect as 

 were some in existence cen- 

 turies ago. That claim is 

 based on written descriptions 

 which are largely imaginary. 

 A few ancient manufactured 

 arms have come down to the 

 present time, and are pre- 

 served in museums. Some 

 of these arms are clever and 

 ingenious, but they are not 

 to be compared with the best 

 product of the present time. 

 They usually weigh twenty- 

 five or thirty pounds, in con- 

 trast with the two pound 

 weight of the best arm now 

 made. According to some 

 of the old writers, weight 

 was desirable in an artificial 

 limb, since the owner might 

 want to use it as a weapon 

 to knock out his foes in bat- 

 tle, and the heavier the bet- 

 ter. That viewpoint is not 

 wholly ancient, for a scene 

 in a modern story has one 

 of the characters in a Michi- 

 gan frontier town using his 

 wooden leg as a club to quell a belligerent lumberjack. 

 Nearly any wooden leg or arm can be made to per- 

 form one or two functions very well, and that was what 

 was aimed at by makers centuries ago ; but it becomes 

 quite another problem when the attempt is made to pro- 



THE FIRST FACTORY OPERATION 



This crudely shaped block of English willow is the raw 

 material with which the artificial limb maker does his 

 best work. It is the first stage in the process; but 

 before it has advanced thus far, the wood has under- 

 gone many months of air seasoning, for the workman 

 must not touch it until it is in perfect condition. 



