For Longer Legs

Even when a child escapes the worst ravages of polio, he is sometimes left with one leg shorter than the other. Surgeons have long sought some sure method for evening up such legs. The most popular practice has been to arrest growth of the normal leg with staples (TIME, Feb. 7, 1949) until the shortened one has a chance to catch up. This method has been highly successful, but many parents will not permit it ("My child already has one bad leg; for heaven's sake, don't tamper with his good one").

Last week Dr. Charles N. Pease of Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital told a meeting of orthopedic surgeons about an operation he has been using. Instead of retarding growth in a sound leg, he tries to make the diseased one grow faster. In his preliminary report, Dr. Pease did not advance his method as either new or a sure thing, but he has used it successfully on 18 children.

The Pease technique is based on the fact that a foreign object lodged in a bone (or any part of the body) causes irritation which results in increased circulation in the region. In a minor operation, Pease bores a hole in the bone of a stunted leg about one-half inch from the epiphyseal plate (the layer of growing cells near the end of a bone) and inserts a small screw. A screw of almost any material will cause enough irritation to promote circulation, but Dr. Pease prefers ivory because it is eventually absorbed by the body. Under the stimulus of increased circulation, bones of younger children begin to grow faster in a matter of months.

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