What Handicaps Are Serious
Generally speaking, a forester must be able-bodied and in good physical health. He must have a strong heart, sound lungs, and a constitution able to stand exposure to all kinds of wind and weather. Heart disease, tuberculosis, and other serious organic troubles are handicaps that point to the choice of another occupation.
On the other hand, there are certain disabilities, and particularly injuries of various sorts, that do not constitute any serious drawback. Injuries to the mouth, nose, ears, scalp, and other parts of the head, for example, do not disqualify unless they interfere to a dangerous extent with one’s eyesight or hearing. Some deafness is allowable provided it has not gone so far as to prevent communication or to endanger one from falling trees or other accidents. Even blindness in one eye is not a real handicap if the other eye is still sound. The loss of an arm or a leg incapacitates a man for the physical work required of most foresters, but minor injuries to these limbs, such as loss of a finger or a toe, do not disqualify one.
For certain specialized duties one can have sustained even more serious injuries and still be able to give satisfactory service. One may be badly crippled and yet be successful in research work provided he is able to move about more or less freely, has some use of his arms, and can handle a microscope. Men at fire-lookout stations need little more than good eyes and sufficient hearing to use a telephone. On the other hand, one would hardly wish to take up fire-lookout work as a permanent occupation, and unless his condition can be improved sufficiently to enable him to resume active physical work his chances for advancement are poor. Special appliances for handling tools are not necessary, as is the case with many industrial workers. The average forester must be able to turn his hand to a wide variety of activities and to use such homely implements as the axe, the hammer, the shovel, and the mattock.
The danger of further injury is no greater in forestry than in most other outdoor occupations. Accidents due to forest fires, bucking horses, falling trees, and rolling stones are always possible, but the proportion of those seriously injured in such ways as these is not large. Those employed by the National Government receive compensation in case of injury incurred in line of duty.