Artificial Noses and Ears

1895

The making of artificial noses and ears has become a good business within the last few years. A nose is first modeled to the proper shape in papier mache, and then it is waxed and varnished to the tint of the complexion of the noseless person. Ordinarily it is fastened on by means of a pair of spectacles, to the nosepiece of which it is firmly attached. In some cases, however, where the remaining stump is large enough, it is clamped in place, and the spectacles are not necessary. An ear is made in much the same way, but it is far more difficult to attach. Most frequently small springs fitting into the ear duct are used, but they are likely in the end to seriously impair the hearing.

Other physical deficiencies are remedied by wigs, false teeth and glass eyes. The last are made almost exclusively in Thuringia, Germany, and the workmen are marvelously expert. — Chicago Record.

Armless Judge Going to Europe to Aid Crippled

1915
Click Photo for Bigger

There He Will Arrange Plans to Help Allies' Maimed

Photo Caption: With only his mechanical arm — designed by himself — Judge Quentin D. Corley dresses and shaves himself, handles his own food, writes his own opinions and handles his own records in the County Court of Dallas County, Texas. He drives an auto, bowls, plays billiards, carries bundles and even helps his wife with the housework.

Over in Europe there are many armless men who feel they are hopelessly helpless. So the Dallas judge is going abroad to do what he can to aid war victims "for humanity's sake," as told in another column on this page.

The top picture shows Judge Corley completing his dressing operations. A contrivance, attached to a suit case, permits him to put on his collar and tie. With an almost similar machine he shaves himself. Below is a photograph of the judge bowling.

DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 16. — Quentin D. Corley, the "armless judge" of this city, will soon take up the burden of the maimed in the European conflict. On Dec. 22 he will leave for Washington, D. C., to confer with an official whose name is not known and who had told the Belgium ambassador to America that Judge Corley, the armless, does the work of a man in everyday life.

It is expected that the judge will sign a contract with the Allies to teach armless soldiers to be happy and to be useful.

The judge says any work he may do will be for the sake of humanity and not for money. "I shall only accept the same salary. I am getting now, and expenses," he says. "If they see fit to honor me if I do their men a service, I shall be glad of that, too."

Story of the Judge's Career

Judge Corley's story is a strange one. He was of a roving disposition when young, and took no qualms at satisfying it as a guest of the railroads. He was riding thru New York State on a freight train when a burly brakeman's head showed over the far end of the car. He slipped and fell as he tried to flee. The trainmen picked him up a poor, mangled youth. One arm was gone at the shoulder and the other just above the elbow.

As he lay in the hospital fighting for life, he began figuring how he would use that life once he was out again.

"I strove to invent and picture in my mind a mechanical hand, but of course I could not get anything but the open and shut movement; no one has," he says. "Then I thought that if I made an arm with an elbow joint in it, and so rigid that it would have both lateral and perpendicular movement, I had the problem solved."

A youth of 23, seemingly handicapped for all time and yet doomed by a healthy body to live a long life, Corley came home to his parents in Dallas with only his idea of a mechanical arm — and a deathless ambition to conquer the terrible odds against him.

How His Plans Worked Out

For four years he studied law with all the mental force of his brilliant mind, and at night he spent hours upon the plan for his mechanical arm. When completed, it was a steel hook made of two steel flanges, which opened and shut on cogs, a little handle which turned them being worked by his teeth. In this way he gripped things tightly, and with the hook he could handle almost anything he could lift.

From then on it was easy. He soon learned to write and then passed the bar examination. He began to practice law and to practice the use of his arm, and study means by which he could use it. His progress was wonderful. He invented other machines, to be used in dressing and sport, until today he can do almost anything a normal being desires to do.

He has a desire bordering on passion to aid the soldiers who have lost both arms in battle. There were more than ten thousand of them in the Allies' armies alone at last count.

Wants to Make Them Useful

"I know I can teach them to use my inventions within a short time, and I want to do it," he says. "I want them to get away from the terrible feeling that they are burdens upon the state and upon their families. If they'll put these men in my hands I can teach a thousand in three months to use this arm and take their places in life and seek happiness."

His friends say he can do it, too. He has pupils all over Texas who are learning from him the secrets. They invariably make good when he turns them loose.

Judge Corley has the inventions he uses patented, but does not sell them. "I have them for humanity," he says.

The plan on which the Belgian ambassador is said to want Judge Corley to work will be a school under his supervision, at which armless men will be equipped and trained by him. It will take him to Europe about four years, if the war continues a year or so longer.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 5.

Peg-Legged Hen a Fighter

1905

Side-Wallops Fowl That Make Light of Her Infirmity

Laying five eggs a week in the season when prices are highest is a minor accomplishment of a Ware (Mass.) hen that has a wooden leg. The hen is of Rhode Island red stock, and is owned by Charles F. Wilcox.

The leg was broken last spring, when it was a pullet, by a stone from the hand of a wanton youth. The fractured support was bandaged in splints and the bone apparently knit. But cold weather had a bad effect and a sore developing, Mr. Wilcox decided to end the suffering of the hen.

His little daughters pleaded so strongly for the hen that Mr. Wilcox spared her life and amputated the leg. In tribute to its fortitude the hen was christened Martyr.

"Why can't Martyr have a wooden leg like other people?" inquired one of Mr. Wilcox's daughters. Mr. Wilcox facetiously referred the suggestion to Gilbert Girard, who declared the idea practicable, and after taking measurements of Martyr's right leg, fashioned a leg from hard maple and attached it.

The leg, which was fitted several weeks ago, has never been removed, and the daughters of Mr. Wilcox refuse to be convinced that scales, feathers and toes will not eventually appear on the artificial leg.

When Martyr made her first appearance with the barnyard fowl after acquiring the wooden leg, her former associates united in attacking her. Martyr, however, had learned the value of the leg as a weapon, and with hard side swipes bowled her antagonists over. Her assailants adopted a conciliatory policy thereafter.

A favorite recreation with Martyr is to insert the wooden leg in the snow, and, curling the right leg beneath its feathers, stand for half an hour or more at a time, enjoying the discomfiture of imitators. Once the wooden leg became frozen in the ice, and Martyr had to be rescued.

Has Cow with Wooden Leg

1914

New York, Jan. 2. — James M. I. Galloway, veterinary surgeon of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, arrived yesterday from Glasgow with photographs of a cow with a wooden leg, which the veterinary says is almost as good to the cow as an ordinary leg of beef and much more effective in knocking out folks who try to milk her on the wrong side.

Other veterinaries laughed at Galloway, who is young and of an experimental temperament, when he decided to save the life of a cow after the leg had been cut off by a locomotive.

The only time the wooden leg gets the cow into trouble is when she stands too long in a damp field and the leg sinks in a foot or so. Mr. Galloway is going to visit his brother, a veterinarian of Washington.

Peg Leg Foils Texan's Attempt at Suicide

1920

Wooden Prop Sticks in River Bank and Stops His Plunge

Is Sued for Fish Slain in His Mad Scramble to Swim Out

SHIRO, Texas, Feb. 26. — John Relmer's peg leg not only prevented him from ending his life here, but landed him in jail on a charge of wanton destruction of private property. Relmer is 40 years old, and has been wearing a wooden leg of the peg variety for twenty-one years. Lately his physical disability has prevented him from earning a comfortable living on the farms or in this little town. He had had a hard winter of it and to add to his misfortunes he took the "flu."

Finally he decided he would end it all.

Relmer decided it would be easier to go via the water route. He knew of such a pleasant place where the blue waters were deep and the banks mossy and shady. It was in the field of J. G. Anderson, a prosperous farmer and fish breeder.

But here's the strange part of the story. When Relmer made up his mind, he at once hobbled over to the place he had selected to end it all. He wrote a little note and laid it on the bank, telling the people why he drowned himself. Then he leaped toward the still, blue water, peg leg and all. That blasted peg leg stuck in the bank of the stream and Relmer's troubles began to double!

Before he could wrench the peg out of the soft bank he had changed his mind about dying. He decided he would begin life anew, provided he could get out. He finally pulled the peg out of the mud, but found the bank so steep he could not climb it. There was nothing to do but swim across to the other side.

Here's more trouble, real trouble, was added to Relmer's burdens. With that peg leg as he swam across the stream he clubbed several of Mr. Anderson's fine fish to death. They were his breeding fish and he had paid a fancy price for them. When he found the dead fish with their head and bodies beaten up and the note Relmer left on the bank he discovered what killed his fish. Anderson had Relmer arrested.

"He should have more sense than to try to drown himself in my fish pond," said Anderson. "Even if he had succeeded it would have injured my fish. He should have tried a rope and a limb."

"I didn't intend to kill the fish," said Relmer, "but I'm glad I'm alive."

Their Long Span of Life -- "Same Razor Everyday, 53 Years"

1922

London — Setting forth a compilation of the longevity of many of the common-place things in life — things which though soon every day are scarcely given thought — the London Mail points out that the length of useful life possessed by articles of man's handiwork forms an interesting speculation, and one which is full of surprises.

"For instance, an artificial leg had been worn by its owner for sixty years and was still serviceable at the end of that time.

"The average life of a locomotive engine is about twenty years, but there are many cases on record of this term being greatly exceeded. One built in 1846 worked for a period of over fifty years, first as a passenger, then freight, and finally as a shifting engine. Another completed over two million miles, equal to one hundred year's service, on the ordinary basis of twenty thousand miles a year.

"In the year 1913 a town in Wales was using a fire engine which had been in active service for seventy years on end. But this record pales when compared with that of an engine which was still in use at the beginning of the present century by a firm of metal rollers in Birmingham. This, a beam engine, was erected in the year 1767, and worked continuously for one hundred and thirty-six years before it was last pulled down and replaced.

"There is a case on record of a man using the same razor every morning for fifty-three years."

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, Jan. 23, 1922, p. 4.


1899

A Long Service

In remote parts of Scotland the old Covenanters' love for long services on the bare hillside still lingers. At Dingwall a recent communion service in the open air lasted from 10 a. m. until 4 p. m. without exhausting the staying power of the congregation.

Policeman Shoots Man Twice — in Wooden Leg

1920

Queer Discovery Made When Victim Is Taken to Hospital

YONKERS, N.Y. — A few minutes before midnight Patrolman H. O. McPill saw a man emerging from between two buildings in a downtown street. He commanded the prowler to halt or he would shoot. The man paid no attention to the officer's command and continued leisurely down the street.

McPill took good aim at the man's leg and fired. The stranger did not stop. Again the policeman shot. The man continued to walk. McPill fired again. He shot at the man five times. At the fifth shot the man stopped.

McPill rushed to the man and seeing two holes in his trousers called the ambulance and rushed the man to the hospital. He was placed upon the operating table and Dr. Hemp made the discover that the man's leg was a "cork" one. Two bullets had passed through it. The stranger was taken to the police station.

Next morning the man was arraigned before Judge Hemp. He gave his name as Elmer Harley and related a plausible story. Judge Hemp pronounced him harmless and discharged him.

As Harley left the courtroom he said he would plug up the holes in his wooden leg and it would be as good as new.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 20, 1920, page 1.

Wooden Leg, False Teeth Are Taxable

1920

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- The cost of wooden legs or false teeth may not be deducted form the gross income in making out Federal income tax returns. This was the ruling of deputies in the income tax office. A man wanted to deduct the cost of a wooden leg, and a woman thought she would be permitted to deduct the cost of a new set of false teeth. Neither deduction was permitted.

When a north St. Louis business man made his return for this year he was questioned about his return for the year before. When asked why his tax return showed a smaller income from his business than did a statement he made to a bank when seeking a loan, he replied:

"A bank statement is one thing and a tax return is something entirely different."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 5.