One of the most powerful war machines in history—the British Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Era—actively groomed amputees for its leadership ranks.
Amplitude / history
Tag: history
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Message from the Editor: Past as Prologue
Amputee admirals in the 19th-century British Navy were judged not by their disabilities but by their abilities. Few institutions in today's society can make the same claim.
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The Grandfather of Adaptive Skiing
Among prosthetists, Paul Leimkuehler is well remembered as a trail-blazing practitioner who helped establish the standards of the profession. But Leimkuehler’s other major contribution to the limb-loss community was nearly forgotten until last year. That’s when his granddaughter, Katie Leimkuehler, unveiled Fresh Tracks, her documentary about Paul Leimkuehler’s invention of the outrigger adaptive ski in...
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Baseball’s Forgotten Amputee Stars: Part II
Little did we realize when we wrote about amputee pitcher Monty Stratton just how rich a vein we’d drilled into. It turns out that dozens, or more likely hundreds, of limb-different ballplayers have been lost to history.
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The Hanger Prosthetic Leg Turns 149 Years Old
The end of this week marks the 149th anniversary of U.S. Patent No. 111,741, filed on February 14, 1871, by James E. Hanger of Staunton, Virginia, for “Improvement in Artificial Legs.” The main innovations Hanger claimed were dual capacities in the knee and ankle joints: They could flex for mobility and lock for stability. As...