Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/344

This page needs to be proofread.
LEFT
280
RIGHT

ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS 280 ARTILLEBY ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS, products of an industry which has been carried to a wonderful degree of perfection, the imitation of natural flowers being so ex- act as to mislead even artists. The French excel in the manufacture of these pretty frivolities. This industry has been successfully carried on in the United States, where a large number of girls are constantly employed in making arti- ficial flowers. ARTIFICIAL LIMBS, substitutes for human arms and legs, and parts thereof, the manufacture of which has received the attention of surgeons and mechanics from a very early date. In the great work on surgery, by Ambrose Pare, in 1579, he refers to, and gives detailed il- lustration of, an artificial ai'm and leg, and although the construction was of a rude character, they showed a very good attempt to conceal the mutilation. In 1696 an artificial leg was invented by Verduin, a Dutch surgeon. James Potts, of England, patented a new leg Nov. 15, 1800. This soon became celebrated as the "Anglesea leg," because it was so long worn by the Marquis of Anglesea. An improvement on this leg was patented by William Selpho, who was the first improvements in artificial limbs, and more particularly in legs, were made by C. A. Frees, of New York. One of these improvements, and one of the most im- portant, consists in the movements of the knee and ankle joints, by which the whole limb is strengthened and made more durable. An important feature of this piece of mechanism consists in the introduction of a universal motion at the ankle-joint, imitating the astragalus movement with an additional joint, and thus producing a most perfect artificial substitute. The World War (1914-1918) created an unprecedented demand for ar- tificial limbs, and the inventors, especially American, provided a variety of ingenious contrivances too numerous to describe. Artificial arms and hands are so con- structed as to enable a person to grasp and hold objects, control movements, and perform most of the operations of the real arm. Artificial legs also show improvement, being light in weight, easily controlled, enabling a cripple to walk with ease and even grace. ARTILLERY, all sorts of great guns, cannon, or ordnance mortars, howitzers, machine-guns, etc., together with aJI the apparatus and stores thereto belonging, FRENCH 75-MILLIMETER FIELD GUN manufacturer of note in New York, where he established himself in 1839. The perfection to which limbs have been brought is wonderful and very interest- ing. A person with two artificial legs can walk so perfectly as to avoid detec- tion, and a person with a single amputa- tion can almost defy detection. Notable which are taken into the field or used for besieging and defending fortified places. It is often divided into (1) horse artillery; (2) field artillery; and (3) garrison artillery. Field artillery is artillery designed to be taken with an army to the field of battle; a park of artillery is artillery