DeepDyve eBooks - A History of Limb Amputation

Introduction and Sources

Pages: 1 –12

[In describing limb loss, alternative terminologies are noted before the word amputation was established in English at the beginning of the 17th century. Since then, written evidence of elective amputation is cumulatively enormous, stimulated initially by the impact of gunshot wounds. However,...

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Natural Causes of Dismemberment

Pages: 13 –22

[Natural causes of limb loss precede elective surgical amputation by many millennia and include congenital absence, arterial disease, frostbite, ergot and other toxins, wound infections, diabetes mellitus, dietary deficiencies and tumours. Most of these causes persist today, although...

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Accidental Causes for Amputation: Auto-Amputation

Pages: 23 –34

[Life without accidents cannot be imagined, and many of the causes are as familiar today as in the past. Falls when running or from heights, crushing by trees, savaging by crocodiles and sharks, and the effects of earthquakes, tsunamis and violent storms would have been familiar to our ancestors...

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Ritual, Punitive, Legal and Iatrogenic Causes

Pages: 35 –44

[Ritual, punitive and legal amputations confer no medical advantage in curing local pain, in removing deformity, infection or gangrene, or in saving lives, and only iatrogenic causes, leading to urgent section, can be considered to approximate to an accidental cause for elective amputation, as...

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Cold Steel and Gunshot Causes

Pages: 45 –54

[Traumatic amputations were probably uncommon until heavy iron and steel weapons evolved, with fingers and hands especially vulnerable. Apart from axes, cold steel weapons proved incapable of amputations at higher levels.All changed dramatically in the 15th century when destructive gunshot...

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Elective Amputation: Early Evolution to the End of the 17th Century

Pages: 55 –67

[If surgical excision in the line of gangrenous demarcation hastened natural separation of mortified limbs and reduced suffering, it left a discharging wound which, at best,might heal only after several months to leave a fragile scar, prone to breakdown, and a stump often incapable of bearing an...

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Elective Amputation: From the 18th Century to 1846

Pages: 68 –82

[If, in this period, progress was accomplished in overcoming blood loss during major operations, life-threatening haemorrhage remained a constant phobia of postamputation surgery, especially above the elbow and knee, whilst measures to control stump infection made virtually no headway. Indeed,...

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Elective Amputation: From 1846 to Recent Times

Pages: 83 –95

[Amputees before anaesthesia recorded amazing examples of sangfroid during surgery, including that of children, often buttressed by strong religious convictions. Others admitted to real pain and terror. In 1846, general anaesthesia not only relieved patients but gave surgeons time to operate more...

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Interpretations of Amputation by Society, Patients and Surgeons

Pages: 96 –109

[It is postulated that mankind’s acceptance of amputees is necessary before elective surgical amputations are undertaken. Even so, some societies do not countenance elective surgery, usually for religious reasons, despite the presence of amputees of congenital, traumatic and punitive or legal...

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Surgical Instrumentation and Equipment

Pages: 110 –124

[Knives for soft tissues and saws for bone are the indispensable instruments for operative dismemberment. Initially borrowed from domestic and craft sources, they evolved forms specific to surgical needs, after gunshot injuries precipitated lifesaving amputation. Curved knives with concave blade...

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A History of Limb Amputation

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A History of Limb Amputation

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