In a special piece for CNN.com leading up to the one-hundred year anniversary of the beginning of World War I in August, Thomas Schlich, Professor in History of Medicine at the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill, delves into the history of prosthetics, tracing the origin of virtually all technological devices used today to replace lost limbs to development and innovation from World War I to aid soldiers returning home crippled from the effects of the war.
From glass eyes to replaced hands and legs, Schlich details advances in the United States and Germany for soldiers who in earlier wars, would have likely succumbed to gangrene or infection and perished.