P.K. Sethi; Surgeon Fashioned New Limbs

P.K. Sethi, 80, an orthopedic surgeon credited with devising below-the-knee artificial limbs that have helped countless amputees in the developing world, died of cardiac arrest Jan. 6 at a hospital in Jaipur, India.

The Jaipur Limb and Jaipur Foot were named after the northern Indian city in which they were created by Dr. Sethi and his colleagues. The devices have became lifesavers for the desperately poor and are particularly welcome in parts of the world strewn with land mines, including Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Rwanda and El Salvador.

The Jaipur prosthetics are made cheaply, quickly and durably from rubber, wood and aluminum. Craftsmen can also improvise with locally available materials, ranging from spent artillery shells in Afghanistan to truck tires in Cambodia.

Most importantly, the prosthetics are slipped into sandals instead of shoes.

"Wearing shoes, which were integral to the Western designed limbs, was uncomfortable in our hot climate," Dr. Sethi said. "Our people walk barefoot or in well-ventilated footwear.

"We are essentially a floor-sitting people, requiring a range of mobility in our feet and knees which is not needed in the chair-sitting culture of the West. We should not expect our people to change their lifestyle because of a design we were forcing on them."

Dr. Sethi initially developed the prosthetics in 1968 while working in the orthopedic department of the state hospital in Jaipur. He said surgery was pointless if the patients, most of whom were desperately poor, could not leave the hospital mobile.

Although the issue of full credit remained complex, Dr. Sethi said he adapted an idea for his prosthetics from a Sri Lankan doctor who covered a peg leg with rubber to help a rice farmer. Dr. Sethi worked with an uneducated master artisan in Jaipur to concoct artificial legs and feet using flexible vulcanized rubber.

Use of the Jaipur limbs was limited -- 59 patients by 1975 -- until the International Committee of the Red Cross began trumpeting its effectiveness for land mine victims after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The concept was given a further push when the celebrated Indian folk dancer Sudha Chandran lost a leg in an accident in 1982 and turned to Dr. Sethi for help. She came back to perform rigorous dance routines on stage and film with the help of Dr. Sethi's prosthetic foot.

Pramod Karan Sethi was born Nov. 28, 1927, in Benares, now Varanasi, India. His father was a physics professor at Benares Hindu University who was credited with writing the first physics textbook in Hindi.

Dr. Sethi graduated from Sarojini Naidu Medical College in Agra in 1949 with bachelor's degrees in medicine and surgery and received a master's degree in surgery from the same school in 1952.