PUBLICATIONS: New Blog Post over at the Wellcome Collection



I have written a new blog post for the Wellcome Collection on the use of guide dogs by blind people in the Middle Ages.  You can find it here. 


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C/W: Contains description of surgery and amputation.  The story of prosthetics is one of human ingenuity.  Based on the existing evidence the earliest entry in this story is of an individual who would eventually be buried near the ancient city of Thebes some time between 950 and 710 BC.  This individual at some point found themselves in need of a replacement big toe, and a prosthetic was made.  Their mummified remains, complete with their prosthetic toe, were discovered in AD 2000, and ten years later a team of biomechanical engineers would discover that the design of the prosthetic was such that it did not require the individual to wear any kind of specialist shoe to hold it in place - they could walk barefoot or in normal Egyptian sandals.  The previous earliest prosthetic we have (or rather had) physical evidence for dated from 300 BC - known as the Capua leg, named for the site of its discovery - it was held by the Royal College of Surgeons, but was destroye...
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Content Warning: Racism, Violence, Murder, Genocide.   This is the story of Johann Wilhelm ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann.  You’ve probably never heard of him.  He was a famous Sinti Romani boxer in the 1920s.  The reason that, particularly in the English speaking world, he is not particularly well known is because of the events described in this post.  Part of the goal in writing this is to draw more attention both to Trollmann himself, and also to the suffering undergone by the Roma including the Sinti during the genocide carried about by the Nazis and their allies.  It is a story of pain, suffering, and defiance, and both the story and the man deserve to be remembered. Johann Wilhelm 'Rukeli' Trollmann as an amateur boxer in 1928 Johann Trollmann was born on 27 December 1907, at Wilsche near Gifhorn in what was then the German Empire.   In the 1920s he rose to fame as a skilled boxer, known for his technique, hand speed, and movement.   He was ...
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