Medicine: Leg-Puller

From sheer whimsicality, the mythical Greek giant Procrustes stretched short men out to fit a long bed. Eight years ago, Los Angeles’ Dr. Alvia Brockway decided to try a scientific Procrustean operation on his patients, who, cured of infantile paralysis or tuberculosis of the hip, hobbled about with one leg shorter than the other. Last week he announced in California and Western Medicine that of 75 operations performed in theOrthopaedic Hospital, 90% were successful.

Said Dr. Brockway, who has scientifically pulled more legs than any other physician in the world: “I have no hesitancy in stating that in the hands of competent men this operation is safe and practical when the lengthening is done below the knee.” Lengthening of the thigh is more difficult because the muscles are tougher and resist stretching, and the position of the nerves makes any slightinfection dangerous.

There are two bones in the lower leg: the small fibula and the large tibia. Dr. Brockway cuts the tibia halfway through at right angles, slits it down to the desirable length, cuts it again at right angles to make a Z-shaped break. The fibula is cut slantwise. Pins are inserted in each bone above and below the break and after the flesh heals around them, are connected by a turnbuckle which is screwed 1/20 to 1/25th of an inch each day until the leg is stretched. The patient feels no pain during the stretching. Three inches is the maximum stretch. The tendons are also snipped in a Z-pattern, pulled to thedesired length at once, stitched tight. Blood vessels, nerves and smaller muscles adjust themselves naturally. Five to eight months after the operation, the pins are removed and the patient again has use of his leg. If the operation is performed on children around 12, the short leg usually grows in length as fast as the normal leg. In a few cases, when patients attained their full height, they discovered that the normal leg had outstripped the short one by an inch.

Modest, soft-spoken Dr. Brockway, son of a California rancher, refuses all requests to make short men tall by stretching both legs, says that he will not perform a serious operation on mere grounds of personal vanity.