Page:The making of a man (1902).pdf/23

 The WALKEASY ARTIFICIAL LEG  The Latest Progress in Artificial Limb Construction

The leg is one of the more recent of the long list of our artificial limb products. The name signifies more than is ordinarily supposed by the public at large, and is only comprehended as it should be by those who are so unfortunate as to require an artificial leg possessing the requisites indicated by the name. To make the new leg such as to truly maintain this name will be our aim and effort in all cases.

As the weight of the body is imposed upon the artificial leg, under a high pressure, changing from naught to the entire weight of the body, and at times to double that weight or more, the least particle of chafing or friction would soon cause soreness and might continue to that extent that the limb would be impossible of good, and, moreover, a source of much injury to the wearer. The amputation of a leg, therefore, requires on the part of the artificial leg a double degree of responsibility; the limb must not only fit the remaining mutilated part of the leg comfortably, but must reproduce the general motion to a greater or lesser degree of perfection. These are delicate features of artificial limb production, and in no way are they more perfectly reproduced than in the leg.

The improvements represented by the leg are not simply theoretical. We have been quietly experimenting with them for years, not in the shop only, but they have been put into practical use by wearers, of various professions and occupations—the correct way of testing an