From Visual Appearance to Functional Means. Prosthetics in World War I

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Sybilla Nikolow
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405977393

Prosthetic aids have always served to overcome physical impairments. For a long time, however, what counted in their history was their aesthetics rather than their functionality. According to the project's thesis, the fact that a paradigm shift in prosthetics finally occurred has to do with the special social conditions and consequences of the First World War. In Germany, where the professional rehabilitation of the severely wounded was already declared a national task in the first winter of the war and at least 60,000 amputees had to be cared for after the end of the war, the perspective shifted from the singularity of the individual case to the social mass phenomenon and thus moved the functionality of body replacement over aesthetic considerations into the interest of society, politics and the economy. The war-related culture of innovation in prosthetics is examined in the research project using the example of the invention, production and use of the so-called working arm, which reveals shifts in the modern image of the body that continue to shape our understanding of disability and normality to this day.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants