The malleable body

Name: The malleable body
Brand: Manchester University Press
Price: 56.5 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

Surgeons, artisans, and amputees in early modern Germany

By: Heidi Hausse

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Paperback | 1 July 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.5

Paperback

RRP $56.99

$56.50

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Available: 1st July 2025

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This book uses amputation and prostheses to tell a new story about medicine and embodied knowledge-making in early modern Europe.

It draws on the writings of craft surgeons and learned physicians to follow the heated debates that arose from changing practices of removing limbs, uncovering tense moments in which decisions to operate were made. Importantly, it teases out surgeons' ideas about the body embedded in their technical instructions. This unique study also explores the material culture of mechanical hands that amputees commissioned locksmiths, clockmakers, and other artisans to create, revealing their roles in developing a new prosthetic technology. Over two centuries of surgical and artisanal interventions emerged a growing perception, fundamental to biomedicine today, that humans could alter the body that it was malleable.

Industry Reviews

'This is an absorbing book that excavates the craft-world of early modern surgeons as practitioners engaged with new technologies of the body... a captivating tale of how experiences born in trauma were crafted with characteristic renaissance artistry and ingenuity into a new aesthetic of the malleable body that now lies at the very heart of modern biomedicine.'
Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize 2024 (shortlistee)

'Hausse's book is both beautiful and brilliant... Each chapter offers a fresh context through which to understand the practice and experience of amputation in early modern Europe... No doubt this book will prove influential.'
Renaissance Quarterly

'Overall, Hausse has offered a thoughtful and stimulating contribution that will shape the history of early modern surgery for years to come and appeal to readers interested in social histories of medicine as well as histories of disability, material culture, and craft and artisanship.'
Social History of Medicine

'Hausse's book is an essential read for scholars of the history of medicine, early modern disability studies, cultural history, and the history of technology. It makes valuable sources accessible and provides thoughtful discussions using material and visual evidence as well as translations of vernacular German sources.'
H-Disability

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