Arms

Henry Wiegman is a 17-year-old Chicago boy who was born without trace of arms. Last week he was proudly feeding himself, typing, writing with the aid of artificial arms motivated by two arm stumps, which Dr. Harry E. Mock of Chicago had produced at the boy's shoulders by the wizardry of plastic surgery.*

As an infant, Henry could toddle about only with difficulty because he was badly club-footed and on his left foot he had only one toe, the great. His right foot had no toes at all. But at the ankle there was a movable, thumblike protuberance. This, as he grew older, he used effectively for washing himself, brushing his teeth and sometimes writing and drawing. Later he learned to grasp objects between his cheek and shoulder, thereby to open doors, hold a pencil or a stick with which he would strike the keys of a typewriter.

At 12 the boy was becoming selfconscious, sorrowed that others had to perform personal attentions for him, hated the perpetual lapping up of his food "like a kitty," especially longed for shirts with sleeves instead of the sacklike garments slipped over his head. Then too a sideshow was tempting the Wiegman family with money for the boy's services as a "freak." He was ambitious, however; wanted to emulate the success of Michael Dowling, bank president of Olivet, Minn., who had lost both his legs and both his arms* at the age of 16, of Judge Corliss of Texas who lost both arms at the shoulders and then progressed to a county judgeship.

Then Dr. Mock was consulted as to whether it were possible to do anything for the boy, who had been showing a keen intelligence and an unusual ability for design. His wooden Santas, shaped with a scroll saw held between his cheek and shoulder, were already quite famed. His sketches were admirable.

The surgeon found that under the boy's skin were folded two tiny arm stumps. There were faint traces of some armless muscles. With boldness and calculation tha surgeon went to work; cut loose the stumps, brought them free; stretched muscles; grafted flesh and skin; produced two arm stumps as large around as the arm of a two-year-old baby. These grew strong, grew larger. Henry became able to wiggle them at will. Artificial arms were carefully fitted over them. He could do things for himself. Best of all he could have regular shirts "with sleeves." His joy when for the first time in his life he was dressed conventionally was so great that the doctors almost cried. He rushed home, in new shirt and suit, to surprise his family. Now he earns his own living by designing Christmas cards, attends the Chicago Art Institute in the probability of becoming an artist. But he keeps up his old habit of opening doors by grasping the knob between his cheek and shoulder.

Cause. The cause of such deformities is obscure. That prenatal impressions on the mother are the cause is not probable, in spite of old tales. Yet there is a ray theory (Babes') that there exists in the brain a centre which controls the development of the arms and legs. Disease or absence of this centre might influence deformities thereof. Of course disease or accident will prevent perfect intrauterine development. However, most physicians believe the limbs are prevented from growing normally by the adhesions or contractions of the amnion, the sac that contains the embryo, or by lack of the serious amniotic fluid.

*Reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Feb. 20. 1926.

*Every one recalls the horror spread through the U. S. just after the War at the report of "basket cases," soldiers so maimed by battle they became only a head on a torso.