The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1918-03-21
FRAGMENTS
OF WORLDS WAR
Work Of the Red Cross to Relieve and
AID the Crippled Soldiers
BY George Buchanan Fife

Toc-toc-toc-
The one new sound In the streets
OF Paris.
The rumble of heavy wheels, the
crack OF whips, the purr OF rubber
tires. the warning of the motor horn.
the toy-tinkle of the flacre horses bell
the scuffie OF f~ootsteps-all these are
the old sounds. It's only the toc-toc
-toc-the dull, unmistakable sound
OF the soldiers wooden leg, the ploa
ding on-march OF the thousands who
have dropped. still living, thru the red
fingers OF war.
For this conflict OF high explosives
sends SO pitiably many men back into
the world with missing legs and arms
yet, s~ingularly enough, with calm, I'M
finching heart, often with a pathetic
ally smiling face, and always with a
ribbon on the breast and the graft
tude of France for their sacrifice.
Hundreds Of them come into Paris
from the great base hospitals, seeking
in some new work, the livelihood they
must make. Many, particularly the
legless ones who have been farmers
or field laborers, believe that their
usefulness as such is at an end and
that the workshop alone is left to
them. Therefore they seek out the
larger cities-Paris, by preference
for employment which will provide
a chair or bench in a workroom where
a new trade may be learned and life
be begun all over again.
II is to these u~nfortunates, these
moment In the bitter struggle at the
front and ever sent back by their Ger
man captors as useless and burden
some. that the American Red Cross
has devoted one OF the most important
of its many services-that OF provid-
ing these MANNED soldiers with the
best type of artificial leg that Ameri-
can ingenuity OF design can produce.
And already more than six hundred
mutilated Frenchmen have been
equipped. But, more, even than that
the American Red Cross has now
established at Saint Maurice, rear
Paris, a factory where American art.
fetal legs are manufactured and sup
piled to the French Government for
issue to the mutiles OF the army. The
present equipment of the plant is for
the completion of fifty legs a month,
but the output is to be increased as
rapidly as possible.
This work has been undertaken for
two fundamental and equally impor-
tant reasons.
The first is scientific. II has been
found that IL a long period elapses
between the amputation of a leg n
the employment Of a proper, weight
bearing device which approaches the
| structure of the normal leg. the mus.
cles involved in the operation become
a~trophied and the habit OF balance and
| of walking becomes markedly chang
cd. This interferes in considerable
| degree with the effectiveness OF a
subsequently supplied leg OF adequate
| design and mechanism.
The second fundamental is psychol-
ogical. When a man losses his leg
"
he naturally feels that his life has
come down In ruin. In some natures
this brings a man to the point OF CIV
ing up everything in despair at the
future and what is Il become Of him.
In other personalities 1t crystaiizes
into the belief that as he has given
the best of himself to the service OF
the State, the State owes him a living.
Both of these are bad paths for him
to go stumbling along in his new life.
The French Government knows this
full well, for it looks forward to the
day when after peace has come to the
land, all her man-power, all her man
spirit. all the heart OF France will be
needed in the task OF setting her
house in order.
So the French Government and the
American Red Cross are now working
together to aid the "mutile" to take
his place in this great work OF the
future, If possible at the trade which
once occupied him. and to make him
feel that he has not been thrust aside
by those more fortunate but no more
deserving.