New Limbs for Old

Newly arrived from Britain is a cheerful film, Back to Normal, showing young Britons merrily dancing and playing tennis and ping-pong, a carpenter at work with his tools, a child playing on a slide, a matron sedately pedaling a bicycle to market. What makes these ordinary goings-on extraordinary is the fact that all the actors are war-wounded cripples, with artificial arms or legs. The British Ministry of Information produced the film to reassure its bomb-battered people. It may be some comfort also to families of the 5,000-plus U.S. soldiers (the Navy has released no figures) who have thus far lost arms or legs in World War II and are being refitted for normal civilian life by the U.S. Army.*

Treatment of men who have lost an arm or a leg has improved enormously since World War I. Then, training and fitting were so incomplete that many casualties soon threw their artificial limbs away because they were too uncomfortable. This time the Army's brisk, blue-eyed Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk (whose book, Amputations, is a surgeon's bible) got six special amputation centers started before the heavy flow of amputation cases began. He believes that with good care, and civilian understanding, no crippled veteran need think of selling pencils on street corners. Good care includes good surgery, a good artificial limb, training and encouragement in its use, job training.

Made of fiber, willow wood, leather, aluminum, steel or plastic, modern artificial limbs are light and adaptable: knee joints, for example, are adjustable for walking, sitting, even dancing. Artificial arms have a great variety of hand attachments. For public wear, there is usually a wooden hand, covered by a glove; for utility, a double hook arrangement to grasp small objects, and special fittings for eating, hammering, driving screws, etc. Before discharge, every man must be able to feed and dress himself.

Each step requires long, patient, often exasperating practice. For a man who has lost an arm, even walking may be difficult at first, because of the change in his body balance. But the first day is made a thrilling occasion; when a man with an artificial leg is ready to walk without crutches or cane, the hospital staff and his fellow patients gather round, turn on music, applaud his first solo steps and his surprised, delighted smile.

The Army's toughest job is to give the man confidence, disabuse him of any notion that he is useless or unattractive. One of its most effective devices is demonstrations of skill by such famed crippled veterans as Charles Craig McGonegal (TIME, Feb. 14). When a crippled veteran is finally discharged from the Army, he has a life pension (e.g., $30 a month for a leg) and has usually begun to learn a trade. What General Kirk and his staff fear most is that oversolicitous or thoughtless civilians may undo their careful work.

* The Army is now getting 600 to 800 amputation cases a month. There have been no so-called "basket" cases (both arms & legs amputated); such casualties almost never survive their wounds.

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