TheAgitator.com
Crutches
Monday, September 6th, 2004Kieran Healy has an amusing post on possible explanations why American hospitals still use inferior underarm crutches instead of the more efficient forearm crutches used in Europe:
Possible explanations:* Efficiency. Already ruled out. Underarm crutches are inferior.
* Revealed Preferences. Underarm crutches must be more efficient because otherwise people wouldn’t be buying them.
* Path Dependence. Some QWERTY-like event in the early 1900s locked American hospitals into the underarm regime.
* Cultural. De Tocqueville notes somewhere that American individualism thrives in the presence of underarm supports for gammy legs, while the ancien regime’s tendency to lean at the elbow meant that its collapse was both inevitable and unforseen.
* Marxist. The ruling crutches of any epoch are the crutches of the ruling class, etc.
* Evolutionary Psychology. On the Pleistocene Savannah, Underarm crutches provided a selective advantage to their users due to their greater length, enabling Underarm-using groups to hold off predators at a slightly greater distance and obtain marginally higher-hanging fruit than their Forearm-using competitors.
* Political Economy. A cartel of crutch producers in league with hospital crutch-wranglers and has cornered the market through aggressive undercutting of the competition and a complex system of kickbacks. Standard Crutch (New Jersey) pioneered this technique in the 19th century, bringing it to such a pitch of perfection that it was impossible to buy a forearm model without also getting three underarm models delivered to you.
* Libertarian. Though technically inferior, underarm models are ultimately beneficial because they encourage a quicker return to standing on your own two feet.
Someone in the comments section points to the most plausible (and, therefore, least cute) explanation: underarm crutches are cheaper.
Add this: they stir up more sympathy.
underarm crutches look temporary…only cripples use well made crutches that actually work well.
mike
It is easier to pull money or credit card out of your wallet while standing (leaning?) at the hospital’s counter on your underarm version to pay for your treatment. In europe you just hobble on out.
(that should be read just dripping with sarcasm)
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