Part 15

And then the optician fits the man according to the oculist's prescription. Just as a druggist fills a physician's prescription.

Now our method of fitting you by mail is precisely like the physician's method.

From your answers to the simple questions we ask on our information blank, we first decide the needs of your case-- then we prescribe-- then we fill our prescription by making especially for your case exactly the kind of truss you need.

A physician never asks you what kind of medicine you want-- he prescribes for you the kind which he knows you need.

But if you go to a drug-store for a truss, the clerk behind the counter asks you what kind of truss you want!

You must be your own doctor.

Neither the drug clerk nor the druggist knows enough about rupture to know what kind of truss you need.

And, usually, his knowledge of trusses is confined to the difference in prices-- he'd rather sell you a $10 truss than a $3 truss.

His knowledge of fitting is not much greater.

If you measure 36 inches around the hips, he gives you a 36-inch truss-- which, in everything except size, would be exactly like the truss he'd sell at the same price, to a man with a rupture only half as bad as yours, or to a man with a rupture twice as bad as yours.

A drug-store sells trusses in exactly the same way that the old-fashioned shoe store sold shoes.

It was solely a matter of how much the customer wanted to pay, and the style the customer wanted-- not what the customer needed.

Thousands of people have been "all crippled up" because their shoes were too short, or too narrow, or the wrong shape. The old-fashioned shoe clerk knew his stock, but he didn't know enough about the customer's feet to know when the customer was properly fitted.

Just as thousands of people have trouble with their glasses because they were fitted by an optician-- "over the counter,"-- instead of having an oculist prescribe for them.

And, partly because improperly fitted at drug-stores, and partly because drug-store trusses are usually mere makeshifts, thousands of people are to-day wearing trusses which are doing immense harm instead of good-- trusses which cause the rupture to grow constantly worse.

Even if there is any druggist in the country who does happen to know much about rupture and about fitting trusses, he'd have to be a mighty bright man to be able to fit you at all properly with the kind of trusses sold in the average drug-store.

Practically all the drug-store trusses are simply some form of the old belt or springs and leg-strap truss-- though sold under hundreds of different names as "improvements." They are usually cheaply constructed-- turned out by machinery in immense quantities.

And they are always ready-made "stock" trusses. Each kind made in only one model or style, and the pads in only a few different shapes and sizes.

Making mighty scant provision for the wide variation between the ruptures of different people; making mighty little allowance for the fact that what will do for one man won't do at all for another.

Your rupture, when out, may be the size of a hen's egg; your neighbor may have a protrusion almost as big as his head; and a lot of other men with protrusions ranging all the way from one extreme to the other. To say nothing of big differences in other ways besides size.

Each of you should have a size and shape of holding pad especially adapted to the needs of your case-- each should have a truss put together especially for you. Else there can be no such thing as continuous, comfortable holding of the rupture.

So you see the absurdity of trying to get a comfortably fitting truss at a drug-store, or of expecting to get one that will do much good.

Might as well expect all men to be properly fitted in a shoe store which carries only one size and shape of shoe. Or in a hat store which carries only one size of hat. Might as well expect both near-sighted and far-sighted men to see better if both wore the same kind of glasses. And might as well expect common window-glass to improve the eye-sight as to expect common drug-store trusses to do any good.

There is just as much difference in different men's ruptures as in the size and shape of their feet or heads.

Just as much variation in rupture as in failing eyesight. And everybody knows that one man may need very powerful glasses, while another needs glasses which magnify only slightly; one may need a double lens, while another needs only a single lens; one may need convex lenses, while another needs concave.

All this doesn't mean that it is hard to fit ruptured people, but merely that ample provision must be made for the different requirements. As a shoe store does for men's feet.

We have found it necessary to make the Cluthe Holding Pads in 115 different styles, shapes and sizes. And frequently we have to make a special style or size.

Thus, no matter what your rupture is like, we can fit you with a Cluthe Truss-- one put together especially for you-- one that will meet your requirements just as well as a shoe store can fit you with shoes, or an oculist fit you with exactly the kind of glasses you need.