Our idea is that the future prospects of a disabled soldier must not be built upon his assurance of obtaining a pension, but upon the rebuilding of him physically, and the retraining of him technically, to take up a self-supporting position in life.
Therefore, there must be no scrapping of the broken soldier. When we bring him from the battlefield, and find that a limb or limbs have to be amputated, the soldier thus wounded is placed in a special category, and we cannot discharge him from the army until every care has been taken to rebuild him physically, morally, and professionally. Then, having given him his limbs and his re-education gratuitously, we also give him gratuitously whatever implements or machinery may be necessary for him to practice his new trade. Not until then do we put him on his new road of life.
The organization for the different stages of this treatment is interesting. In Italy each army corps has its special province or district. And each of those geographical sections has a complete organization for the care of the disabled. There is the surgical hospital, the orthopedic institute, and the school for retraining the soldier in whatever trade he may be capable of following.
When the amputation wound is sufficiently healed in the surgical hospital, we give the soldier a month's leave, fitting him with a temporary limb for use during that time. When the month is out—that is, before he has had time to get into lazy habits at home or suffer from the effects of misdirected sympathy—he must enter the school for the re-education disabled. To this school is also attached the orthopedic institution. Here he has his definite set of limbs fitted. A plaster cast is taken and each limb is made with particular individual care; and during the first weeks of its use the soldier is under the constant supervision of the doctors, so that they can alter the artificial limbs according as any defects become manifest.
I may also say, for it is an important point, that the limbs made for the common soldier are the same as those made for the Colonel, and the one gets them gratis just as the other does. Not only that, but we have a National Institute whose duty is to take care of these limbs, renew them and alter them free of cost, as long as the soldier lives.
What are the limbs like? Well, for instance, even where a man has lost both hands, we have fitted artificial ones which enable him to write with pen or pencil, to use knife and fork, to button his clothes, and to shave with a safety razor. Thus we get rid of the constant depression from which a soldier would otherwise suffer were he to feel dependent upon some friend for every hand's turn in his daily life.
One of the great sources of success in applying these limbs is the special Italian system, the theory of which was laid down by Vanghetti, of making the amputation so that the muscles from the living part of the arm can be attached in such a way to the artificial limb as to get an organic muscular connection. Thus the natural muscles of the living arm actually can be got to work the artificial fingers or leg, as the case may be. I have made several of these connections full success. And the system is now becoming almost the rule all over the country. It is a special Italian invention, though some of the German professors want to claim the credit for it.
The most important feature, however, of our Italian system is the insistence on retraining. If the soldier's disablement does not allow him to follow his ordinary calling in life, and if he be not of independent means, he is absolutely bound to spend at least a month or six weeks in the training school. There he is asked to choose a trade or calling in keeping with his physical ability. We keep him for at least about six weeks, and show him the whole system in working order. Of course, if he cannot be persuaded, we must allow him to go home, for, after all, we are a free country. But when he remains he is put through a thorough course of training.
During these first weeks in the school the new limbs are fitted, for the school works in connection with the orthopedic institute. In the school we teach the illiterate peasants to read and write. We teach all sorts of designing and drawing, all commercial subjects, all the artisan trades, and also technical farming. Generally we give preference to these trades that can be practiced at home; and we do not encourage largely such trades as would call for work in large factories. In the case of farmers or farm laborers, who are too seriously injured to undertake the heavy work in the fields, we teach them the finer technique of vine culture, wine making, cheese making, &c.
And it generally happens that these disabled men return to life better fitted for their work than they were before the war.