P.K. Sethi; Surgeon Fashioned New Limbs

He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Scotland. With his credentials, he was asked in 1958 to create and lead the orthopedics department at Sawai Man Singh College and Hospital in Jaipur -- an institution in danger of losing its accreditation by the Medical Council of India.

At the time, the department suffered from neglect. A physical therapist was working as a masseuse, and supplies consisted of a monthly case of talcum powder, he said.

Patients were mostly those suffering from polio, leprosy and gangrene-infected snakebites. Others severed their limbs by falling from overcrowded trains.

Dr. Sethi was disheartened to see patients he had fitted with expensive Western-style prosthetics giving up on the fake limbs and reverting to crutches because they disliked covered footwear.

He turned to Ram Chandra, an illiterate master craftsman who taught handicrafts to lepers at the hospital. Chandra, who later said he was denied due credit, claimed a large role for himself in the development of the Jaipur limb and foot.

What is undisputed is that Dr. Sethi and Chandra worked together to create lifelike artificial limbs that would prove flexible and waterproof. It took them two years of experimenting with materials to refine their product. One notion, using sponge, proved less than ideal for rice farmers.

Chandra, whose expertise was in metalwork and die-making, produced the first aluminum-die model of what would become the Jaipur prosthetics. Some published reports said Chandra first came upon the idea of packing the die with vulcanized rubber after seeing tire repairmen fix his bicycle. A wooden ankle was later fashioned to prevent the rubber from shredding.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Sethi began introducing the limb at medical symposiums in an effort to spur worldwide interest. He met with protests of the Artificial Limb Manufacturing Corp. in India, a government-sponsored business that mass-produced Western-style artificial limbs.

But the Jaipur devices, which now cost about $30, were widely hailed for their accessibility and won major backing from powerful sponsors who had benefited from prosthetics after accidents. Dr. Sethi's creation received a boost in credibility when he won the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, often called Asia's version of the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Sethi, long retired and having fallen out with Chandra, spent many years working for a Jaipur charity that gives artificial legs to the poor. He also helped establish limb centers internationally to aid those harmed by land mines.

In 2004, he told the British Medical Journal that he was angry over what he called blatant corruption in Indian medicine, involving kickbacks from corporations making machinery and the dehumanization of patients by doctors who see their clients as test subjects.

"I have often advised our young doctors not to rush to make a lot of money -- the gratitude of the patient should be enough," said Dr. Sethi, who maintained the family's Jain traditions. "But my main regret is that I have not been able to pass on my ideology to them."

Survivors include his wife, Sulochana Patni Sethi, whom he married in 1951; three daughters; and a son.