Prosthetic Limb

A prosthesis is an artificial device that replaces a body part lost to injury, disease or a condition present from birth, built either to restore the missing part's function or mainly for appearance, and fitted and adjusted for its wearer by a specialist called a prosthetist. Prosthetic limbs go back thousands of years: archaeological evidence points to the ancient Near East around 3000 BCE, and the oldest known functioning prosthesis is a wooden toe found on a body from Egypt's New Kingdom, dated to around 1000 BCE; later accounts describe a Greek diviner who replaced his own foot with a wooden one and a Roman general who returned to military service wearing an iron hand. Prosthetic design advanced again in the Renaissance, when the surgeon Ambroise Pare built devices with adjustable harnesses and locking knee joints that shaped artificial limb design for centuries afterward.