While some wanted to save as much of the healthy body as possible, others insisted it was more important to reshape limbs so patients could use prostheses. Never before had European surgeons advocated amputation methods based on the placement and use of artificial limbs. Those who did so were coming to see the body not as something the surgeon should simply preserve, but rather as something the surgeon could mold.
As surgeons explored surgical intervention with saws, amputees experimented with making artificial limbs. Wooden peg devices, as they’d been for centuries , remained common lower limb prostheses . But creative collaborations with artisans were the driving force behind a new prosthetic technology that began appearing in the late 15th century: the mechanical iron hand .
Written sources reveal little about the experiences of most who survived limb amputation. Survival rates may have been as low as 25% . But among those who made it through, artifacts show improvisation was key to how they navigated their environments.
A wearer operated this 16th century iron hand by pressing down on the fingers to lock them and pressing the release button at the top of the wrist to free them.
Bonnevier, Helena, Livrustkammaren/SHM , CC BY-SA
This reflected a world in which prosthetics were not yet “medical.” In the U.S. today, a doctor’s prescription is necessary for an artificial limb. Early modern surgeons sometimes provided small devices like artificial noses, but they didn’t design, make or fit prosthetic limbs . Furthermore, there was no occupation comparable to today’s prosthetists, or health care professionals who make and fit prostheses. Instead, early modern amputees used their own resources and ingenuity to have ones made.
Iron hands were improvised creations. Their movable fingers locked into different positions through internal spring-driven mechanisms . They had lifelike details: engraved fingernails, wrinkles and even flesh-toned paint .
Wearers operated them by pressing down on the fingers to lock them into position and activating a release at the wrist to free them. In some iron hands the fingers move together, while in others they move individually. The most sophisticated are flexible in every joint of every finger.
Complex movement was more for impressing observers than everyday practicality. Iron hands were the Renaissance precursor to the “bionic-hand arms race” of today’s prosthetics industry. More flashy and high-tech artificial hands – then and now – are also less affordable and user-friendly.
This technology drew from surprising places, including locks, clocks and luxury handguns. In a world without today’s standardized models , early modern amputees commissioned prostheses from scratch by venturing into the craft market. As one 16th century contract between an amputee and a Genevan clockmaker attests , buyers dropped into the shops of artisans who’d never made a prosthesis to see what they could concoct.
Because these materials were often expensive , wearers tended to be wealthy. In fact, the introduction of iron hands marks the first time period when European scholars can readily distinguish between people of different social classes based on their prostheses.
Powerful ideas
Iron hands were important carriers of ideas. They prompted surgeons to think about prosthesis placement when they operated and created optimism about what humans could achieve with artificial limbs.
But scholars have missed how and why iron hands made this impact on medical culture because they’ve been too fixated on one kind of wearer – knights. Traditional assumptions that injured knights used iron hands to hold the reins of their horses offer only one narrow view of surviving artifacts.
A famous example colors this interpretation: the “second hand ” of the 16th century German knight Götz von Berlichingen . In 1773, the playwright Goethe drew loosely from Götz’s life for a drama about a charismatic and fearless knight who dies tragically, wounded and imprisoned, while exclaiming “Freedom – freedom!” . (The historical Götz died of old age.)
A 19th century photograph of the famous ‘second hand’ of Götz von Berlichingen with flexible finger joints.
Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg/Wikimedia Commons. , CC BY
Götz’s story has inspired visions of a bionic warrior ever since. Whether in the 18th century or the 21st , you can find mythical depictions of Götz standing defiant in the face of authority and clutching a sword in his iron hand – an impractical feat for his historical prosthesis. Until recently, scholars supposed all iron hands must have belonged to knights like Götz .
But my research reveals that many iron hands show no signs of having belonged to warriors, or perhaps even to men. Cultural pioneers, many of whom are known only from the artifacts they left behind, drew on stylish trends that prized clever mechanical devices, like the miniature clockwork galleon displayed today at the British museum. In a society that coveted ingenious objects blurring the boundaries between art and nature, amputees used iron hands to defy negative stereotypes depicting them as pitiable. Surgeons took note of these devices, praising them in their treatises. Iron hands spoke a material language contemporaries understood.
Before the modern body of replaceable parts could exist, the body had to be reimagined as something humans could mold. But this reimagining required the efforts of more than just surgeons. It also took the collaboration of amputees and the artisans who helped construct their new limbs.
Heidi Hausse received funding from the Herzog August Bibliothek in 2012, the Consortium for 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 at Columbia University in 2016-2018.
Source: The Conversation