First artificial limbs for soldiers

Surgeons performed more than 50,000 amputations during the Civil War and nearly 75 percent of the patients survived.

In 1862, the government provided the amputee veteran with $75 for an artificial leg and $50 for an artificial arm. By 1895 the US government had granted 144 patents for legs and in 1917, as the United States entered World War I, there were 200 artificial limb manufacturers in the country.

Among the notable manufacturers of artificial limbs was B. Franklin Palmer of Philadelphia, himself an amputee, who had been making such limbs since well before the Civil War.

Ambroise Pare (1509-1590) was the first to tackle the problem of producing artificial limbs and the first to establish their feasibility.

He joined the French army and became a military surgeon in 1536, and consequently was surrounded by the need for these aids. He became a leading surgeon of the Renaissance at a time when surgeons were still considered on a par with butchers.

His inventions were mainly designed for wounded soldiers and he devised for them several arms and hands that were successful.

In his books Oeuvres, he described and provided drawings in great details of an artificial hand, arm and leg designed for soldiers.
First artificial limbs for soldiers

First caesarian birth in Europe

European Renaissance period saw a revival of interest in medicine after the Dark Ages.

Caesarian section is the important surgical procedure in obstetrics. It can be traced to a 700 BC Rome, when the procedure was first used to remove infants from women who died late in pregnancy.

In 1500, Jacob Nufer, farmer from Sigershauffen, Switzerland, successfully performed the first known caesarian in Europe on his wife, after doctors were unable to help her. This legend is one of the most commonly repeated stories and it’s supposed to refer to the first caesarian carried out on a live women.

The maternal mortality rate was high up to the end of the nineteenth century, most often because of hemorrhage and infection.

The first modern caesarian section was performed by German gynecologist Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in 1881. He successfully used a lower uterine incision for caesarian section.
First caesarian birth in Europe