Out on a Limb: Military Medicine, Heinrich von Kleist, and the Disarticulated Body, by Stefani Engelstein, in German Studies Review; Awarded DAAD Outstanding Article Prize of the German Studies Association (original) (raw)

"Nichts kan natiirlicher als die allgemein herrschende Neigung seyn, lieber zu sterben, als das Abschneiden groBer Glieder geme und willig ausstehen zu wollen," Johann Ulrich Bilguer, a surgeon general in the Prussian army, wrote in his 1761 Abhandlung von dem sehr seltenen Gebrauch, oder, der beynahe gdnzlichen Vermeidung des Ablosens der menschlichen Glieder.1 The abhorrence of this operation, according to his description, extended beyond the individual patient throughout society, affecting, or even infecting, anyone who "solche wahmimmt, die sich nur mehr aufihre Stelzen lehnen, als damit fortschreiten können" (19). By 1812, however, Karl Ferdinand Graefe, a professor of surgery at the University of Berlin and instructor at the Royal Medical-Surgical Academy for the Military, insisted that both the visual and functional impact of amputation had been eliminated with the replacement of the rickety and conspicuous peg-leg by a prosthesis so advanced that "das verlohrene Glied durch ihn vollkommen zu ersetzen ist. Alle, denen ich den Unterschenkel abnahm, gebrauchen den kiinstlichen so, dafB man in den Bewegungen zwischen dem natiirlichen undjenem, keinen Unterschied auffinden kann."2 Therefore "Den gut gefertigten kiinstlichen Unterschenkel gebrauchen die Amputirten so, daB sie den Verlust des Gliedes gar nicht vermissen" (18). Hidden within the startling alteration in medical opinion which thejuxtaposition of these two comments, issued a mere fifty years apart, reveals, lie implications which reach far beyond this particular operation and beyond the medical field as a whole. The prosthesis is a symptom of and a catalyst for the shifting perceptions and evaluations of the "natural" in general and the human body specifically. Simultaneously it occupies a unique mediating position both between the medical and military communities, and between these institutions and the culture at large. The most visible and lasting remnant of battle, the amputee is also a testament to both the prowess and the limitations of medical technology. Fluctuating between