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Stories

  • Article

Adapting to life as a thalidomide survivor

Growing up as a thalidomide survivor meant coping with all the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence, while having to fit into a world designed for the able-bodied.

  • Article

The current that kills

In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.

  • Book extract

Sockets and stumps

Historian Emily Mayhew has met soldiers who have survived the seemingly unsurvivable. Here, she explores the part prosthetics play in the process of military rehabilitation.

  • Article

Surviving a flesh-eating disease

Nearly dying from a skin infection gave Scott Neill a chance to start again after an early life marked by grief and depression.

All stories (8)

Images

  • Pl. XII. Operation at the shoulder joint to amputate the arm.
  • M0007902: Leg amputation
  • Amputation set, circa 1750.
  • Iguana with amputed leg
  • Amputation instruments and apparatus.
  • Amputation of the breast.
  • Amputation case, 18th century
  • Surgical instruments, including an amputating saw, an amputating knife, scalpels and bone nippers. Engraving by Wilson Lowry, 1810.
  • Amputation scene, "De gangraena et sphacelo"
  • Lacerated, amputated penis of a tortoise.
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Catalogue

All works (906)