No attempt is made in this little book to describe all the artificial limbs and appliances that have been invented. Before the war these were very numerous, since then their number has become countless, and not a day passes without the appearance of some new model of greater or less ingenuity.

But all these special inventions, the utility of which we should not think of denying, are only of real practical value if the makers have followed out certain general principles in their manufacture. In the following pages we have attempted to indicate what these principles are.

Our experience has been gained in connection with the FÉdÉration des MutilÉs, where hundreds of disabled men have been examined and fitted, and where we have always tried to give to each that appliance which is best suited to his work.

For this indeed is the vital principle, and great disappointments will result if, for Æsthetic reasons, every patient is given the same appliance, whether it be the leg known as the American leg or an elaborate artificial arm. More often than might be believed accurate imitation of the external form of the natural limb is incompatible with good functional use. This is particularly so in the upper limb.

Perhaps the readers of these pages will gain a clear understanding of these principles; and we shall have attained our object if by enabling them to understand certain typical appliances we make it possible for them to devise others which are at the same time strong, shapely and practical.

Throughout the volume it will be found that we express a preference for the construction of artificial limbs for the lower limb out of wood, the method adopted by the Americans. This procedure, because strength and durability are so necessary, seems to us to constitute a very real advance; these considerations are, however, of much less importance in the case of the upper limb. It is a matter for regret that the French official instructions have not compelled our manufacturers to adopt this technique, too often the latter are inclined to keep to their old routine, but they can be induced to alter it, as we have proved by our success at the FÉdÉration des MutilÉs.

There is nothing revolutionary in such a suggestion. It has been adopted by the Belgian Government in the fitting centres which they have established; this is also the case with the English authorities, who, we understand, have even attracted from America special fitters for this work. We should have thought that we, in France, might have developed our national supply of artificial limbs in the same direction.