Today the human body consists of many replaceable parts, ranging from artificial hearts To myoelectric feet. This becomes possible not only thanks to sophisticated technology and delicate surgical procedures. It's also the idea that people can and should alter patients' bodies in extremely complex and invasive ways.
Where did this idea come from?
Scientists often depict American Civil War as an early watershed for amputation techniques and prosthetic design. There were amputations most common operation of warand whole prosthetic industry developed in response. Anyone who has seen a movie or television show about the Civil War has probably watched at least one scene a surgeon grimly approaching a wounded soldier with a saw in his hand. During the war, surgeons performed 60,000 amputations, spending just three minutes per limb.
However, important changes in practices related to limb loss began much earlier, in 16th and 17th century Europe.
How historian of early modern medicineI explore how Western attitudes towards surgical and artisanal interventions in the body began to transform about 500 years ago. Europeans went from hesitancy to perform amputations and limited options for prosthetic limbs in 1500 to multiple amputation methods and complex iron hands for the wealthy by 1700.
Amputation was considered a last resort due to the high risk of death. But some Europeans began to believe that they could use it in conjunction with prosthetics to shape the body. This break with the millennia-old tradition of non-invasive treatment still influences modern biomedicine, giving doctors the idea that crossing the physical boundaries of a patient's body to radically change it and introduce technology into it can be a rewarding endeavor. Modern hip replacement would be unthinkable without this basic assumption.
Surgeons, gunpowder and the printing press
Early modern surgeons passionately discussed where and how to cut the body to remove fingers, toes, arms and legs, which medieval surgeons did not do. This was partly because they were faced with two new developments during the Renaissance: the spread of gunpowder warfare and the printing press.
Surgery was a craft learned through apprenticeships and years of traveling to learn from different masters. Surgeons performed topical ointments and minor procedures such as setting broken bones, opening boils, and stitching wounds. daily practice. Because of their danger, major surgeries such as amputations or trepanation – drill a hole in the skull – were rare.
Widely Use firearms and artillery disrupted traditional surgical practice by tearing bodies apart in ways that required immediate amputation. This weapon is also created wounds susceptible to infection and gangrene due to crushed tissue, impaired blood flow, and the entry of debris—from wood chips and metal fragments to clothing scraps—deep into the body. Mangled and gangrenous limbs forced surgeons to choose between performing invasive operations or letting their patients die.
printing press gave to surgeons combating these traumas is a means of spreading their ideas and methods beyond the battlefield. The procedures they described in their treatises may seem gruesome, especially since they were performed without anesthesia, antibiotics, blood transfusions or standardized sterilization techniques.
But each method had a rationale. Striking a hand with hammer and chisel made the amputation quick. Cutting the desensitized dead flesh and burning the remaining dead matter with a cauterizing iron prevented patients from bleeding to death.
While some wanted to preserve as much of the healthy body as possible, others insisted that it was more important to reshape the limbs so that patients could use prosthetics. Never before have European surgeons advocated amputation methods based on the placement and use of prosthetic limbs. Those who did this came to view the body not as something that the surgeon should simply preserve, but as something that the surgeon could fashion.
Disabled people, artisans and prosthetic limbs
While surgeons were exploring saw surgery, amputees were experimenting with making prosthetic limbs. Wooden pegs as they were for centuriesremained ordinary lower limb prostheses. But creative collaboration with artisans became the driving force behind new prosthetic technology that began to emerge in the late 15th century: mechanical iron hand.
Written sources reveal little about the experiences of most amputees. The probability of survival was only 25%. But the artifacts show that among those who succeeded, improvisation was key to how they navigated their environment.
This reflected a world in which prosthetics was not yet “medical.” Today in the United States, a doctor's prescription is required to make a prosthesis. Early modern surgeons sometimes offered small devices such as artificial noses, but they did not design, manufacture or install prosthetic limbs. Moreover, there was no profession comparable to today's prosthetists or medical professionals who make and install prosthetics. Instead, early modern amputees used your own resources and the ingenuity to make them.
The iron hands were improvised creations. Their movable fingers were fixed in different positions by means of internal spring mechanisms. They had realistic details: engraved nails, wrinkles and even flesh tone paint.
Owners managed them pressing down on your fingers to lock them into position and activating the wrist release to release them. In some iron hands the fingers move together, while in others they move separately. The most difficult ones have flexibility in every joint of every finger.
Complex movement was more for impressive observers than everyday practicality. Iron Hands was a precursor to the Renaissance. “bionic arms race” modern prosthetics industry. Flashier, more high-tech artificial hands—then and now—are also less accessible and user-friendly.
This technology comes from some surprising places, including locks, watches, and luxury pistols. In a world without today standardized modelsEarly amputees commissioned prosthetic limbs from scratch, tapping into the craft market. In one of the 16th century treaties between an amputee and The Geneva watchmaker confirmsCustomers went into the shops of artisans who had never made prosthetics to see what they could cook up.
Since these materials were often expensivetheir owners were usually rich. In fact, the emergence of iron hands marks first period of time when European scientists will be able to easily distinguish people of different social classes by their prosthetics.
Powerful ideas
Iron hands were important carriers of ideas. They have encouraged surgeons to consider installing prosthetics during operations and have created optimism about what people can achieve with prosthetic limbs.
But scholars have lost sight of how and why iron hands had such an impact on medical culture because they were too fixated on one type of wielder: knights. Traditional speculation is that wounded knights used iron hands to hold the reins of your horses offer only one narrow view of the surviving artifacts.
A famous example highlights this interpretation: “used» German knight of the 16th century Goetz von Berlichingen. In 1773, playwright Goethe drew heavily on Goetz's life. for drama about a charismatic and fearless knight who tragically dies, wounded and imprisoned, exclaiming “Freedom is freedom!”. (The historical Goetz died of old age.)
Goetz's story inspired visions bionic warrior since then. Either in the 18th century, or 21styou can find mythical images of Goetz disobedient in the face of authority and clutching a sword in an iron hand – an impractical feat for his historical prosthesis. Until recently, scientists believed that all iron hands must have belonged to knights like Goetz.
But my research shows that many iron hands show no signs that it belonged to warriors or perhaps even men. The cultural pioneers, many of whom are known only from the artifacts they left behind, drew on stylish trends that valued clever mechanical devices such as miniature wind-up galleon exhibited today in the British Museum. In a society that yearned genius items Blurring the lines between art and nature, amputees have used iron fists to challenge negative stereotypes that portray them as pitiful. Surgeons took note these devices, praising them in his treatises. The iron hands spoke a material language that was understandable to contemporaries.
Before the modern organism replacement parts could exist, the body needed to be reimagined as something that humans could shape. But this rethinking required the efforts of more than just surgeons. It also required the cooperation of amputees and artisans to help build them new limbs.
This article has been republished from Talka nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trusted analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. He was written by: Heidi Hauss, Auburn University
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Heidi Hauss has received funding from the Duke Augustus Library in 2012, the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in 2014–2015, the American Council of Learned Societies in 2015–2016, the Huntington Library in 2016–2017, and the Society of Fellows in the Humanities of Columbia University in 2016–2018.
