Word: size
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...which killed Alexander the Great in his prime and often saved Rome by cutting down besieging armies, is still the greatest enemy of man's health and welfare. The U.S. is one of the few areas of the world that has reduced malaria's ravages to manageable size. Elsewhere, it claims 300 million victims, 3,000,000 of whom die each year. By sapping the vitality of its victims, malaria breeds poverty. It bars economic progress in so many parts of the world that it has been called a "gigantic ally of barbarism...
...measured by Papa who insists that the lucky skier wear a properly ftting sock for the occasion. Having got a measurement of the customer's foot, Peter, or one of the boys, selects a "last" (the "last" looks like a solid wooden shoe tree with no hands) nearest the size of the measured foot. This "last" is carefully sanded down or built up with pieces of leather so that it emerges a working model of the foot...
From here the "last" and the measurements are consulted in making a pattern for cutting out the leather uppers. The trigonometry involved would do credit to a Math 1 student. At this point, Mama's work begins; she cuts and sews the uppers to the required size. The selection and cutting of the upper is a difficult process, since all leather will stretch in one direction. The problem is to select a piece of leather with the minimum of stretch, and then cut it so that the stretching will be in the least detrimental direction...
...Limmer customers are themselves an interesting lot. Their feet (the largest being a size 16) have skied over every part of the world. The family collection of letters from customers indicates the extent of their clientele. One letter from the Belgian Congo thanks Peter Limmer for his excellent repair work on an old pair of Limmer shoes, and further acknowledges receipt of a new pair of white ones. When "some Maharaja was in Boston for a lung operation," states Peter Jr. with understandable pride, "we made him a pair of shoes with gold buckles and a pair with felt soles...
Experts today assume that Gutenberg made the change after he discovered he was not putting enough material on each page to keep the Bible the size he wanted...