Prosthesis

A prosthesis is an artificial device that replaces a body part lost to injury, disease or a condition present from birth, restoring function, appearance, or both. The Cairo Toe, a wooden and leather artificial big toe found on an Egyptian mummy dated to between 950 and 710 BCE and showing genuine wear, is the earliest confirmed prosthesis in active use, while an eye prosthetic of bitumen paste covered in gold, buried with a woman at Shahr-i Shokhta in present-day Iran around 3000 to 2800 BCE, is the earliest archaeological evidence of the practice. Documented prosthetic users through history include the Greek diviner Hegesistratus, who fashioned himself a wooden foot after escaping Spartan captors, the Roman general Marcus Sergius, who held his shield with an iron hand, and the German knight Gotz von Berlichingen, who wore a refined iron prosthetic arm from the early sixteenth century; later advances included Ambroise Pare's above-knee prosthetics fitted with a locking knee joint and the Desoutter brothers' first aluminum prosthetic limb.