If an employe, who has incurred (through injury or otherwise) permanent partial disability, through the loss, or loss of use of, one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg or one eye, incurs total disability through a subsequent injury, causing loss, or loss of use of, another hand, arm, foot, leg or eye, he shall be entitled to additional compensation as follows:

After the cessation of payments by the employer for the period of weeks prescribed in Clause (c) of section 306,¹ for the subsequent injury, additional compensation shall be paid during the continuance of total disability, at the weekly compensation rate applicable for total disability. This additional compensation shall be paid by the department out of the Subsequent Injury Fund created pursuant to section 306.2.² All claims for such additional compensation shall be forever barred unless the employe shall have filed a petition therefor with the department in the same manner and within the same time as provided in section 315³ with respect to other injuries. Where, however, a person is receiving benefits pursuant to the act of June 28, 1935 (P.L. 477, No. 193), referred to as the Heart and Lung Act,⁴ the two-year period in which parties must file a petition for additional compensation, shall not begin to run until the expiration of the receipt of benefits pursuant to the Heart and Lung Act.

The Department of Labor and Industry shall be charged with the conservation of the assets of said appropriation. In furtherance of this purpose, the Attorney General shall appoint a member of his staff to represent the Subsequent Injury Fund in all proceedings brought to enforce claims against such fund. In its award the Department of Labor and Industry shall specifically find the amount the injured employe shall be paid weekly, the number of weeks compensation which shall be paid by the employer, the date upon which payments shall begin, and if possible the length of time such payments shall continue.

Any benefits received by any employe, or to which he may be entitled, by reason of such increased disability, from any State or Federal fund or agency to which said employe has not directly contributed, shall be regarded as a credit to any award made against the Commonwealth as aforesaid, excepting those benefits received by an employe by reason of service connected physical injuries, incurred during any war between the United States of America and any foreign country.