THE USES OF WOOD 



815 



The unfortunate rich open their purses to buy the best 

 that skill and experience can produce, and the poor man is 

 able to purchase serviceable substitutes for lost members. 



The surgeon's splint 

 deserves a place in the 

 industry. It is a wood- 

 en patch on nature's 

 limb rather than a wood- 

 en substitute. Many 

 woods can be worked 

 into splints, but complete 

 figures giving kinds and 

 totals appear to be lack- 

 ing; but one excellent 

 wood has been listed. It 

 is the yucca palm of 

 California and Arizona, 

 Yucca mohavensis. It is 

 a peculiar tree, a hard- 

 wood that belongs to the 

 lily family. It develops 

 no annual growth rings, 

 its trunk consisting of 

 woody fibres and soft 

 tissues. Splint makers 

 reduce the trunk to 

 veneers which are then 

 cut in strips of the de- 

 sired size. The strips 

 look like lattice-work or 

 coarse lace. The wood 

 is very stiff, strong, and 

 light, and is an ideal 

 materia! for splints. The 

 yucca is a desert tree. 

 Its trunk may attain a 

 diameter of a foot 

 or more. Its dark, 

 branches, and leaves are 

 ragged, suggesting in ap- 

 pearance the extinct 

 trees of the Carbonifer- 

 ous Age. Fortunately, a 

 use has been found for 

 the wood, other than as 

 posts for sheep corrals 

 near the water holes in 

 the deserts where this 

 palm ekes out its precar- 

 ious existence. Nearly 

 40,000 feet, board meas- 

 ure, or ten times that amount if the surface of the 

 veneer is measured, are yearly converted into splints for 

 reducing broken bones. 



Mention has been made of government statistics of 

 the woods reported by the manufacturers of limbs and 

 that in these figures the limbs, crutches, and surgeons' 



splints are grouped in the same industry. It is possible 

 to segregate the woods, with fair accuracy, according to 

 their uses. The following table lists these woods 



