File:The disabled soldier (1919) (14764436054).jpg

Identifier: 14031070R.nlm.nih.gov
Title: The disabled soldier
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: McMurtrie, Douglas C. (Douglas Crawford), 1888-1944, author
Subjects: Veterans Disabled Persons Rehabilitation, Vocational Amputees Artificial Limbs World War I
Publisher:
Contributing Library: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons, U.S. National Library of Medicine

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
twas that it was impossible to fit the artificial limb untilthe stump had had a chance to shrink to somethingresembling its final form. But in the modern anxiety ofthe surgeons to get the man back on his legs, they do notwait for fitting of the permanent limb, but put on himat once, a few weeks after amputation, a temporary pegleg made of splints and plaster, or papier-mache, or ofsome other similar material. The soldier then leaves hisbed and takes his first steps about the hospital. Anappliance of the sort meets in a most satisfactory wayall the requirements of transport from overseas. A peg leg of any kind, however, if worn for some lengthof time gets a man in a bad habit of walking, for thereason that it must be swung outward in a semi-circularmotion to bring the foot of the peg from the end of onestep to the beginning of the next. This process is known Learning to Walk for the Second Time. At Naples,Italy, crippled soldiers are provided withartificial limbs and taught to use them
Text Appearing After Image:
A Working Arm in lieu of Natures Own. A variety of toolscan be fitted into the chuck of this appliance, and the one-armed poilu is again enrolled in the army of labor HORS DE COMBAT 115 scientifically as abduction. In providing for leg ampu-tations among men in the American Expeditionary Force,after the cases have been returned to this country,another improvement has therefore been made. Tem-porary limbs of hollow fiber, made with knee and anklejoints in practically the same manner as the final leg,are made up in standard units in sufficient numbers tomeet the probable demand. These are fitted to the menafter they have worn the peg leg for a short time, andthe fitting can be changed as the stump alters in shapeor size. This provisional leg is expected to last fromsix months to a year and to serve satisfactorily, therefore,until the permanent limb can be fitted with the bestresults. France and Great Britain were caught unprepared bythe demand for limbs, as their supply had been beforet

Note About Images