Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics

”A Limb Which Shall Be Presentable in Polite Society”: Prosthetic Technologies in the Nineteenth Century

10 “A Limb Which Shall Be Presentable in Polite Society” ProstheticTechnologies in the Nineteenth Century Stephen Mihm THE DISPLAY O F theA.A. Marks Company must have been one of the more memorable at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 (fig. 10.1). In an impressive bid to capture visitors’ attention, the firm had constructed four large display cases roofed by a gilded dome and a “colossal golden leg” that towered over the surrounding exhibits. Each glass case, the company’s pamphlet patiently explained, “contained artificial legs and arms for amputations in the hips, thighs, knees, legs, ankles, feet, shoulders , arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, and fingers”—over fifty limbs in all. Though the Marks Company took home the highest award on this occasion, it was not for a lack of competition. In a testament to the demand for prostheses, no fewer than nine manufacturers of artificial limbs had assembled on this occasion to display their wares.1 Aside from selling artificial limbs, the company’s monument silently commemorated the grim toll of the industrial age. The flywheels and pulleys of the new mills and factories severed arms and legs with alarming frequency throughout the nineteenth century, as did the wheels of railroad locomotives, particularly at perilous grade crossings in urban areas. Most destructive, however, was the Civil War, which marked the first sustained use of accurate, breech-loading firearms. Unlike earlier guns, these weapons fired so-called minie balls, expansive bullets that lost their shape upon contact with a target. They usually shattered two to three inches of bone, and carried bits of skin and cloth282 ing deep into the wound, increasing the possibility of infection if the victim was fortunate enough to survive the initial impact.2 Doctors in field hospitals, overwhelmed with the wounded, usually opted to amputate the limb rather than reconstruct it. All the carnage did not go unnoticed. One writer captured the state of affairs when he noted that “there are few of us who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want has become a great and active industry.”3 Indeed, the scale of this mutilation seems to have prompted an outpouring of invention: between 1846 and 1873, Americans submitted some 167 patents for prosthetic devices.4 Manufacturers turned out ever more sophisticated models throughout the nineteenth century, making the United States the preeminent supplier of artificial limbs in the world. “A LIMB WHICH SHALL BE PRESENTABLE IN POLITE SOCIETY” 283 FIG. 10.1. From Highest Award for Artificial Limbs at the World’s Columbian Exposition , Chicago, 1893, pamphlet in “Artificial Limbs,” box 1, folder 10, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. The limbs exhibited by the Marks Company represented a tremendous advance in design over earlier prostheses; most artificial legs from ancient times onward consisted of crude pegs. Though some craftsmen did experiment with more intricate devices beginning in the sixteenth century, few of these models found much of a following. The most famous of these was the “Anglesey leg,” developed in Britain in the late eighteenth century. It depended on cogs and gears to approximate the movement of an actual arm or leg. Unfortunately, this model, like those that preceded it, broke down, made considerable noise, and required frequent oiling; indeed, amputees often carried an oil can with them to prevent the gears from binding.5 More troubling, however, was the fact that, for all their mechanical sophistication, these more advanced models did not move in tandem with the body; they did not complement the rhythm and gait of the wearer. If anything, these early limbs had a mind of their own. One commentator observed that these “jerking, clapping, snapping and rattling ” contraptions inevitably exhibited “many unreliable and uncontrolable [sic] gyrations”—they simply failed to respond reliably and predictably to the movement and weight of the body.6 Things began to change around the mid-nineteenth century. The typical limb was made of a light and flexible wood, such as willow or bass, and colored, as one manufacturer claimed, “so natural that the most delicately wrought hose and slipper are sufficient to conceal the work of art.”7 Yet unlike earlier models, this emphasis on mimicking the natural limb extended to the internal design of the prosthesis. It was...