Los Angeles herald., 1908-01-20
PNEUMATIC. ARM"
IS LATEST DREAD
OF CONDUCTORS
Peculiar MaIady Causes Many to Won-
der When Employees Disappear,
and Families Mourn AffIctlon
of Discharged Member

Many passengers who inquire con-
corning the whereabouts of certain
street railway men might understand
heir absence il familiar with char
acteristic malady affecting those en-
gagged In that work.
Rheumatism is the special affliction
of nearly all who help in the running
of trolley cars, and occasionally we
hear a reference made to a former
employee as having a rheumatic arm"
That is all
The man has left the company's
service. No more is heard of this par
ucular victim of the dread arm-ail-
ment.
The ordinary outsider-the creator Of
railway corpol ations-who gives his
fare to the conductor and proudly es-
teens TIE company that is able to speed
him on his way so comfortably and
swiftly as is the case in Los Angeles,
freely discusses the prevalence of rheu-
matism among the street railway en-
ployes.
He talks it over with his wife, who
declares that grandma got her rheu-
lnatism by sitting in a draft at a meet
ing one time
Then he recalls how dad" got the
first pike of that dire disease driven
into his poor old long-suffering joints
by a certain rainy season, when the
old man didn't wear heavy enough
flannels am sot his dear old feet wet,
etc.
The wives OF street car conductors,
who have been discharged for having
The rheumatic arm, often sympathetic
ally attribute poor hubby's affiiction
10 the electricity, or other causes
Sometime they argue that 1t must be
exposure. or insufficient clothing, or
the recent heavy rains that has brought
so many under the spell of the dreaded
arm-d disease,
, Some Real rheumatism
That is true as any thoughtful pa
tron of the trolley lines can see. The
inclement weather does bring real
rheumatism to many a plucky motor
man or conductor, and makes them suf-
fer long after the mud of the rainy
season has dried and the tourist has
returned to the east, where they have
coal instead of oranges.
But
That is not all of the trouble. There's
another kind of rheumatic arm" af-
Fiction.
The phrase, "he left our service be-
cause he had a rheumatic arm" is but
another instance of the polite consider
alton which the railway company man
ifests for it's employees.
If you sit in the car ana near III
tie bell rinG inside, you know imme-
1iately that one of two things has oc-
CURED. Either some excited woman has
tried to stop the car by pulling the
wrong strap as a signal for the conduc-
tor has rung up another rare. Moro
probably the former-on some cars.
sometimes the latter. And when the
conductor is found not to be ringing the
right bell often enough, he is discovered
70 be afflicted with the we'll known
rheumatic arm
A conducto" must be able to reach
up after getting his fare from the
passenger, and to ring the fare. When
ne fails to d. this, and unconsciously
pockets the money, it is said that he
is suffering from "a rheumatic arm.
That is he cannot reach high enough
up with his arm to ring the fare.
There is no special run of that trou-
ple," explained a local railway official
Yesterday although we have no spe-
cial lot of cases of that kind at pres
ent, we are having such instances
every now ans then"
So, when you notice a new conductor
on your morning car as you come down
town in the morning, and you ask him
where his predecessor has gone, DO not
be overcome with grief at the suffer-
ings of the missing one, when informed
that he has become victim of the
fatal rheumatic arm" and has had
tc be excused from duty because of It,
No. Just count your change care
fully.