Buchstein’s Vulcanized Fiber Limb

It's "soothing to your stump."

Popular Mechanics - Dec 1917

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 24, 2015
Category: Advertising | 1910s

Comments

Guy 2: Sorry but that just didn't live up to the excitement you told me would happen.
Guy 1: Did you kick her rubber leg out from under her?
Guy 2: Ohhhhhhhh!

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 12/24/15 at 10:18 AM

Comfort is very important, I wonder what they were made out of before this innovation.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/24/15 at 10:56 AM

One of these.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 12/24/15 at 11:06 AM

Patty: traditionally, wood, I believe. I've seen wooden limbs in musea. That's not just a pirate story myth.

Posted by Richard Bos on 12/24/15 at 01:35 PM

Not always a wooden peg leg or iron hook.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/angelameiquan/21-antique-limbs-for-the-early-amputee-70fn

Posted by BMN on 12/24/15 at 02:24 PM

Wow, I am impressed by how advanced some of those prosthetic appliances were way back when. I guess if dentures were made of wood its not surprising that artificial limbs were as well.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/24/15 at 06:34 PM

@Patty: Hey, us old farts invented fire and the wheel!!

Here is some 'Mind Candy' for you on Christmas. The engineers who built Neil Armstrong’s moon walk suit based it on the armour worn by King Henry VIII of England.

Have a good year ahead and many more.

Posted by BMN on 12/25/15 at 03:13 AM

BMN: I doubt that, mainly because the only surviving Henry VIII armour I know of was made during his "disgustingly obese" period and was entirely ceremonial. He certainly must have had more useful suits during his earlier "svelte and attractive" period, but even those wouldn't have been useful moulds for use in zero gravity and zero atmosphere.

Posted by Richard Bos on 12/26/15 at 12:26 PM

Unfortunately, there would have been a huge market for those things in 1917, in the midst of the Great War.

Posted by Harvey on 12/26/15 at 10:26 PM

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