However, most of the men do not return to war but settle down to peaceful labors. One soldier, a shoemaker by trade, found that he could make just as good shoes with one foot as with two. Another case was that of a soldier who had lost both legs at Liège. He was an engineer by trade and now he is running the fast train between Cologne and Brussels. A tailor had both feet cut off. The new feet made for him were very big and now he can tread the sewing machine as well as before.
Armless Soldier Learning to be a Carpenter.
The most successful hand made since the war was not "Made in Germany" but "Made in America." A famous Berlin surgeon, Dr. Max Cohen, became infected from the wound of a soldier whom he was dressing at the beginning of the war. The infection became so bad that it was necessary to amputate his left hand. He sent to America for a new hand. It is made so that the fingers have joints like a real hand, and these joints bend and work like the joints of a real hand. The joints are operated by pulleys fastened at the shoulder. The hand can not only hold things, but can lift a fifty-pound article and can carry lighter weight articles. With his good right hand and the aid of this left hand, Dr. Cohen can still carry on his operations, and they are as successful as before.
Dr. Cohen Lifts 50 Pounds with Artificial Hand Made in America.
All over Germany they have exhibitions of dummies with artificial arms and legs to show their workings. One dummy was a figure at a sewing machine, and it showed how artificial legs could do the treading. The men can go to these exhibitions and pick out the kind of an arm or leg that suits them.
Dr. Max Cohen. He is Able to Hold a Newspaper.
Perhaps the hardest task of the war is the educating of the blind soldiers, for they are more or less helpless, and they are apt to become despondent. In Berlin they have established a hospital and a school for blind soldiers. It is called the St. Maria Victoria Hospital. The whole inspiration of this school is a blind woman, Fräulein Betty Hirsch. When the war broke out she was in England studying the English methods of dealing with the blind, and she has charge of all the training of the soldiers.