Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

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.

  • 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

Navigating in a connected world

Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.

  • Article

Thalidomide survivors in the 21st century

As thalidomide survivors enter their 60s, they look back on their lives and the legacy of the thalidomide catastrophe.

All stories (9)

Images

  • An itinerant salesman with artificial arms selling the bootlaces that hang from the hooks of his hands. Etching by J.T. Smith, 1816.
  • Artificial left arm and hand
  • Artificial left arm and hand
  • Artificial left arm and hand
  • Artificial left arm, metal, with hand and canvas shoulder strap. Made by the Mckay Artificial Limb Company.
  • Artificial left arm, metal, with hand and canvas shoulder strap. Made by the Mckay Artificial Limb Company.
  • Artificial left arm with shoulder straps. Made with leather and aluminium by W. R. Grossmith.
  • Artificial left arm with shoulder straps. Made with leather and aluminium by W. R. Grossmith.
  • Artificial left arm with shoulder straps. Made with leather and aluminium by W. R. Grossmith.
  • Artificial left arm with shoulder straps. Made with leather and aluminium by W. R. Grossmith.
All images (21)

Catalogue

All works (124)