Stiles's Hand
The latest news on artificial limbs came from an unusual quarter. Boon Stiles, 38, a veteran of the Casablanca landing, landed in San Quentin in 1944 for writing a bad check for $54. There he took up his old hobby--making artificial limbs.
When the Warden heard about Prisoner Stiles's leisure-time project, he sent some Stiles drawings to nearby Mare Island naval base. The Navy offered tools and materials, later supplied a human guinea pig: 25-year-old Lieut. Howard Pollack, who had lost his right arm in the South Pacific campaign. Stiles, with Lieut. Pollack's cooperation, eventually developed an artificial hand which he claimed would tweeze, grip, poke, carry and press. A Stiles-equipped amputee might thus be able to bowl, play golf, pick up a pin, hold a cigaret, button his own sleeve.
Fortnight ago San Quentin's doors swung open and ex-Convict Stiles, who had tried to keep his mother from knowing about his prison sentence, found him self surrounded by eager sob-sisters and reporters. He was also the reluctant hero of a mushy radio program which stressed his San Quentin record. To add to his troubles, the Navy seemed reluctant to sponsor his "invention." The National Research Council was looking into it, but thought the hand did not differ materially from several others of the same type.
Finally trapped by reporters last week, harassed Inventor Stiles said that the new hand will not be finished for another five weeks. It will be covered with a soft, lifelike, flesh-colored plastic which ought to look and behave like the real article.
He hopes the hands can be mass-produced by a die-stamp process, each one custom-fitted. He plans to form his own company, hire only veterans.
Shy, suspicious, and convinced that most manufacturers are profiteering from G.I. amputees, Stiles explained his own motives : "This is not a money-making thing at all. I just want to provide them for veterans on a low-cost-plus basis."
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