The Malleable Body: Surgeons, Artisans, and Amputees in Early Modern Germany

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Description

This book uses amputation and prostheses to tell a new story about medicine and embodied knowledge-making in early modern Europe. It draws on the writings of craft surgeons and learned physicians to follow the heated debates that arose from changing practices of removing limbs, uncovering tense moments in which decisions to operate were made. Importantly, it teases out surgeons' ideas about the body embedded in their technical instructions. This unique study also explores the material culture of mechanical hands that amputees commissioned locksmiths, clockmakers, and other artisans to create, revealing their roles in developing a new prosthetic technology. Over two centuries of surgical and artisanal interventions emerged a growing perception, fundamental to biomedicine today, that humans could alter the body - that it was malleable.

Reviews

'This is an absorbing book that excavates the craft-world of early modern surgeons as practitioners engaged with new technologies of the body... a captivating tale of how experiences born in trauma were crafted with characteristic renaissance artistry and ingenuity into a new aesthetic of the malleable body that now lies at the very heart of modern biomedicine.'
Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize 2024 (shortlistee)

'Overall, Hausse has offered a thoughtful and stimulating contribution that will shape the history of early modern surgery for years to come and appeal to readers interested in social histories of medicine as well as histories of disability, material culture, and craft and artisanship.'
Social History of Medicine

'Hausses book is an essential read for scholars of the history of medicine, early modern disability studies, cultural history, and the history of technology. It makes valuable sources accessible and provides thoughtful discussions using material and visual evidence as well as translations of vernacular German sources.'
H-Disability

Author Bio

Heidi Hausse is Assistant Professor of History at Auburn University