The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-11-12
GOOD AND BAD FALSE LEGS.

ICleyerly these days that the people Wnt
 wear them forget they ever suffered tht
 triding embarrassment of losing a les
 or two. or even an arm. They put il
 such flexible joints and such charming
 rubber feet that the Wearers of thesC
 improved legs dance gaily at balls ant
 coalitions without raising question a'
 to the makeup of their limbs There
 is a man in downtown office wearing
 an artificial leg and foot-his own hay. ing been amputated four inches below the knee, who jumps six feet forward
 in a sprightIy manner, just to show
 what he can do when the subject o1
 wooden legs is mentioned. He car
 pick up 200 pound man in his arms
 and hold him easily and dance jig
 with his rubber foot and willow limb
 He would just as soon have an artific-
 ial leg and foot as not. There is one | advantage, he says, He never has
 rheumatism, and he never suffers with
 corns or chilblains He can quit polk
 CT game at any stage without being ac-
 cused of having "cold feet" He is as
 happy as grlg, though just why a
 grig should be happy is one Of the l
 'The making of artificial limbs, "
 said one of the makers as he stood with
 a piece of willow tree in his hands and | looked at 1t with a critical eye, lis an
 art" Even Tom. Dick and Harry who
 hangs out shingle cannot make arti-
 ficial limbs properly. If they did some
 of us would have to go out of business, You see, they go at the business in a blundering way and try to turn out legs
 as cheaply as possible, and the result Is, they turn out bad ones. Everything | lies in the fitting of the stump. The making of the leg itself is almost sec-
 ondary to it's fitting in such a way that | it will not bother the man who wears it. The making of bad legs is what keeps the business of us who make good legs going" Here the limb mak- CT paused a moment to see whether that shot had found a target.
 There are plenty of limbs demand ed," he went on, owing to accidents and amputations, for one reason and another but If all the legs made and sold were et to wear permanently the business would be pretty slack. The fact is, that two-thirds of the false limbs turned out by some houses are unsatis- factory, and their purchasers come here and throw them away when they get new ones. See" and he opened the door of a closet and showed a score of artificial legs of all makes, patents and weights, They were all secondhand, but some of them had evidently been worn only a short time.
 Feel the weight of that" he said, handing out ponderous thing of leath- CT and wood and metal. It fell on the floor with a clank like that of q bushel of coal
 What do you think of man trying to wear think like that?" he asked Now, in here I will show you the lightest artificial limb ever made"
 He led the way to an inner room, where in a cabinet were half a dozen new limbs, all of the queer pink, which Is supposed to resemble flesh tints. But they certainly were light. A limb which was intended to be strapped around the hip for an amputation above the knee was as light as bas- ket of chips. It was made of willow, pared very thin, covered with raw hide and then painted with waterproof en- amel The soot was of rubber, firm, but flexible, and the knee and ankle joints worked as well as metal joints can work.
 That is the leg that I got that cer- tificate for" said the limbmaxer, point ing to framed certificate. from the Worlds fair, which set forth that the limbs made by this manufac- tuner were the real thing
 "Very few of the old-fashioned wood- en stumps are made now,' he went on. "Of course, some people who are too poor to get an artificial limb make them themselves. They take a couple of pieces of wood and chop them out some way to support their weight. A good leg, one of the kind I showed you in there is worth about $100. Of course, this price keeps many people from get ting them, but they are worth it. They must be fitted with care and skill which come only from experience, and 1t Is worth money to get the right thing the first time. There has been a great advance made in the making of artificial limbs in the last decade One | mpr ovement has followed another, un- Ill now it Is almost impossible to de- .ect the presence of first-class artific- al limb. They are making feet of rub per and of aluminium and of wood, but | [ think the rubber feet are the only l perfect ones made. They bend and | give to the steps of man walking, l which aluminium does not
 "A funny thing about false legs" vent on the builder of underpinning, | is the prevalence of the term cork | eg' Now, as matter of fact, there is | 10 such thing as cork leg, and there | lever was. Cork would not do for a | eg-it would crumble away. It was lever used for the purpose, and can- lot imagine how that expression origi- lated, but right along you hear peo- ,le talking about somebody with a cork leg,' The legs are made of will ow, because it Is light and very strong. | We get it in blocks, as you see, and l make every leg to order. It must be much more carefully fitted and meas | red than pair of shoes or a suit of lothes, for the least thing out of the vay will irritate the stump. Again we ften have to deal with bad amputa- ions-where the surgical work was not
 IL.