Medicine: Better Arm

Artificial arms & legs are still in the Model T era; changes come slowly, are often mere tinkering. But last week the Veterans Administration had good news of a sort for the 17,000 World War II amputees. It had approved a new arm & leg which embodies some useful improvements. They were produced, oddly, not by limb experts but by an aviation company, Northrop Aircraft.

Northrop was persuaded to go out on the limb because of its experience in working with light materials. Designed by a crew of engineers, the Northrop arm is a plastic and aluminum affair weighing half a pound to a pound less than previous arms. Other advantages: a new wrist mechanism (for arms amputated below the elbow) which makes it possible to rotate the wrist in either direction; a steel cable, replacing smelly leather thongs; an improved elbow lock. The Northrop leg, similarly, is lighter, has a suction socket and locking knee.

The Northrop limbs, now ready for mass production (as soon as the company finds limb manufacturers willing to make and fit them), are the first products of artificial limb research launched by the Government 21 months ago. A civilian committee, now under the National Research Council, has spent $500,000 on research, has $1,200,000 more to spend. But Model A is not yet in sight.