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Army Surgeon Describes Devices of Fibre and Rubber That Defies Detection.

INSTEP SPRING IMITATED

Medical Society Hears of Plans for Rehabilitating Men Disabled in War.

A new type of an artificial leg, adopted by the Government, the invention of Major David Silver, Medical Corps, U. S. A., was described last night to physicians by Major P. B. Magnuson, Medical Reserve Corps, at the New York Academy of Medicine.

"This artificial leg is of a type far ahead of anything that has been developed abroad as the result of the war." asserted Major Magnuson. "It is a better substitute for a natural leg than the Government has ever been able to obtain heretofore for $100 each, and it can be made for one-quarter of that price. In this one thing alone Dr. Silver, who was formerly a practicing physician at Pittsburgh, has earned his salary as a Major."

It is said that a cripple, after his is accustomed to use this invention, may walk with practically natural movements. No crutch or support is necessary, and even the foot movement and pressure is simulated and made easy by a special joint instep with a base of rubber. The invention has been successfully tried by a soldier with both legs amputated. So long as a man has two stumps this invention literally "puts him on his feet" again.

"With this aid Uncle Sam will be able to avoid conditions which followed the civil war, when so many one-legged soldiers hopped along the streets on crutches or suffered life-long supports," said Major Magnuson.

"Within three weeks this new invention has demonstrated his success. It is in the form of a joint-peg leg, made of fibre and rubber. It is in three parts -- thigh section, lower leg, and foot. There is no joint at the ankle, but a dowel on the ankle fits into a socket of the lower leg. An instep hinge, with a plug of rubber, makes a substitute for the natural foot more like the real foot than anything that has been devised heretofore by scientific surgery."

With the leg clothed and a shoe upon the artificial foot, Major Magnuson said it would be difficult for an observer to detect the peg-leg on a practiced user. After describing the methods by which a soldier is gradually taught to make complete use of the artificial leg, he said the Surgeon General's office was preparing a broad system of general conservation of permanently disabled soldiers, not only to restore them as near as possible physically, but is also to place them upon a self-supporting or partly self-supporting basis.

"This is to be accomplished by a series of large hospitals here, which are being constructed or are to be built, to which soldiers will be brought back from the front for treatment. The best surgical and medical men will be in charge of these hospitals. It is expected that thousands of these men will be able to return to some form of military duty, not on the front fighting line, but at work equally required, which will release the physically perfect for fighting.

"Then there is to be vocational, educational, and trade training for others to fit them to begin or renew an industrial life or gainful occupation."

Major Magnuson suggested that this form of conservation of man should continue in industrial life after the war. The industrial field, like the army and navy, should do away with poor medical care and surgery, and get the best that the profession has. It would be better for the employer and is nothing more than what the industrial worker deserves, he said. Industrial accidents in this country, he pointed out, reached a greater total yearly than would be the entire casualties in the American forces until next January.