HISTORICAL PROSTHETICS....

[Andrew Young]

With their some of their origins in plate armour design, I was thinking about making a few replicas of prosthetics from antiquity to the Renaissance.

Thought this would be an interesting and ironically poignant thread with so many vets coming back missing limbs.

Looking for pictures and details of construction.


Ill start off with a few:

Egyptian foot


Saints Cosmas and Damian performing transplant surgery. Attributed to Alonso De Sedano, Burgos, Spain, ca. 1495.



Artificial hand, from Ambroise Paré's Instrumenta chyrurgiae et icones anathomicae (Surgical Instruments and Anatomical Illustrations), Paris, 1564.



1580



1649 [?] Parre
[img]http://www.artbrain.org/phantomlimb/plimages/wade1.jpg[/img]


1863

[Corey D. Sullivan]

1863

Now that's steampunk!


Seriously cool stuff. Don't suppose you know if many of these things were just flights of fancy, or did they actually work?

[Wolf]

ya, but nothing works like a M-16 for a leg...

[Andrew Young]

ya, but nothing works like a M-16 for a leg...

Good point.

Yeah I suspect they had their uses....limited however.

When I build my cyborg body Ill make a few exchance pieces and let ya know

[Maeryk]

That second picture, for some reason, makes me think of the old joke about the German-AMerican fellow who loses his "unit" in a tragic steel mill accident.

They tell him the good news, which is a prosthetic can be affixed, and that he
can retain full use and function, and would he just step into the showroom and pick out the one he likes.

He goes in, and for a good half hour, is browsing. Comes back out, and beckons to the doctor, and says "Doc.. I kinda like #34. I think it would be just about perfect. But.. uhh... does it come in white?"

(My grandfather told me that joke, only it was a 45 minute shaggy dog story while we were re-sheathing the front of his house. And I didn't get it. Took me TWO YEARS to get that joke, it did.)

[Argyle the Wanderer]

i dont get it...



im seriose here.

[chef de chambre]

The bulk of historical prosthetics were stumps with pegs attatched. Looking at Medieval art, you see crippled beggars, with twisted limbs, with a stump like Long John Silvers strapped to the knee, or the like.

I am surprized you didn't have Gotz of the Iron Hand's Gauntlet-hand up though. I believe the original survives.

The American Civil War Limb, actually worked about as well as prosthetics until recent modern times (the 1940's), and it was the first time in history they really tried to produce artificial limbs that looked something like actual ones, down to 'realistic' paint jobs, and having poseable hands, for instance (for common people, at any rate)

[Andrew Young]

The bulk of historical prosthetics were stumps with pegs attatched. Looking at Medieval art, you see crippled beggars, with twisted limbs, with a stump like Long John Silvers strapped to the knee, or the like.

I am surprized you didn't have Gotz of the Iron Hand's Gauntlet-hand up though. I believe the original survives.

The American Civil War Limb, actually worked about as well as prosthetics until recent modern times (the 1940's), and it was the first time in history they really tried to produce artificial limbs that looked something like actual ones, down to 'realistic' paint jobs, and having poseable hands, for instance (for common people, at any rate)

I am just throwing out some quicky net finds..... I think that hand above is the Gotz hand, isnt it???

http://pics.myarmoury.com/view.html?hand03.jpg#

http://pics.myarmoury.com/hand03_s.jpg

[Destichado]

i dont get it...

Let me put it this way... in college there was a guy who had the nickname "rope". The guy looked like a horse. He wasn't white.

[lorenzo2]

I think I have seen a 16th century armoured prosthetic. I will see if I can dig a pic up.

[Andrew Young]

any luck on that lorenzo?

[Glen K]

[img]http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Hook-Poster-C10134950.jpeg[/img]

[Andrew Young]

[img]http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Hook-Poster-C10134950.jpeg[/img]

ya got me...Im hooked

[lorenzo2]

I thought I had a pic of it somewhere. I will have to keep looking.

[Argyle the Wanderer]

do you know what really killed Capt. Hook?

Jock itch!