Today, medical sciences have become so advanced that many limbs of the body are made artificially and replaced by the competent surgeons. This advancement has come to this stage after a long process. The first person who made the artificial limbs was a French surgeon named Ambroise Pare (1510 – 1590).
In the 1500s, surgery was not practiced by physicians but it was one of the specialties of the hair cutting profession. As a young boy Pare had the barber’s training. In 1541 he became a barber surgeon in Army. Eventually he became surgeon to the French king Henry II and to the king’s three sons who later succeeded him.
Ambroise Pare was a very popular surgeon largely because he introduced many improvements in the existing methods. For example, he gave up the practice of cauterizing wounds with boiling oil; instead he tied off the exposed arteries and covered the wounds with simple dressings.
Pare developed several artificial limbs such as arms and hands. He made an arm that could be bent of the elbow and a hand with movable fingers. Even today Pare is considered as the first person to devise artificial limbs.
Today we have modern artificial legs and muscle activated electric arms driven by electric motors. They have become very useful for the patients who have lost their natural limbs.