Daf Ditty Shabbes 66: Of Stumps and Men

‫ ִדְּבֵרי ַרִבּי ֵמִאיר‬,‫ַמְת ִני׳ ַהִקּיֵטַּﬠ יוֵֹצא ְבַּקב ֶשׁלּוֹ‬

MISHNA: One with an amputated leg may go out on Shabbat with his wooden leg, as it has the
legal status of a shoe; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir.

‫ ְו ַרִבּי יוֵֹסי אוֵֹסר‬.

And Rabbi Yosei prohibits going out into the public domain with the wooden leg, since he does
not consider it to have the legal status of a shoe.
‫ ְוִאם ֵישׁ לוֹ ֵבּית ִקיבּוּל ְכִּתיִתין — ָטֵמא‬.

And if the wooden leg has a receptacle for pads, a concave space at the top of the leg into which
pads are placed to cushion the amputated leg, it assumes the status of a wooden vessel and can
become ritually impure.

Later in the daf:

‫ ָהָכא ָלא ָסֵמי\ ִﬠיָלֵּויהּ‬,‫ ָהָתם ָסֵמי\ ִﬠיָלֵּויהּ‬:‫ ְוַאָבֵּיי ֲאַמר‬.‫ ֲﬠָגָלה ֶשׁל ָקָטן — ְטֵמָאה ִמ ְד ָרס‬:‫ ְמָנא ָאֵמיָנא ַלהּ — ִדְּתַנן‬:‫ָאַמר ָרָבא‬.

Rava said: From where do I derive to say this halakha? As we learned in a mishna: The wagon
of a small child utilized to teach him to walk (Tosafot) is subject to ritual impurity imparted by
treading, since its purpose is to lean on it. And Abaye said: The two cases are not comparable.
There, in the case of the wagon, he leans all his weight on it; here, in the case of the wooden leg,
he does not lean all his weight on it.

‫ ַמֵקּל ֶשׁל ְזֵק ִנים ָטהוֹר ִמְכּלוּם‬:‫ ְמָנא ָאֵמיָנא ַלהּ — ְדַּת ְנָיא‬:‫!ָאַמר ַאָבֵּיי‬

Abaye said: From where do I derive to say this halakha? As it was taught in a baraita: A walking
stick, typically used by the elderly, is pure, i.e., incapable of becoming ritually impure from any
form of ritual impurity. Apparently, an object upon which one does not lean all his weight is not
subject to ritual impurity imparted by treading.
‫ ָהָתם‬:‫ְו ָרָבא‬

And how does Rava respond to this proof? He says that there is a distinction between the cases:
There, in the case of a walking stick used by the elderly,

‫ ְוָסֵמי\ ֲﬠֵליהּ‬,‫ ָהָכא — ִלְסמוֹ\ ִﬠיָלֵּויהּ הוּא ַדֲּﬠִביָדא‬,‫ְלָתרוֵֹצי סוּ ְגָיא ֲﬠִביָדא‬.

it is made merely to align his steps and straighten his posture. He does not completely lean all his
weight on it. Here, in the case of a wooden leg, it is made to lean on, and in fact he leans all his
weight on it.

Abaye and Rava argue whether or not the wooden foot of an amputee can become Tamei with
Tum'as Midras.
Tum'as Midras is conveyed by sitting, standing, or leaning upon an article that is made for sitting,
standing, or leaning upon. Abaye and Rav disagree as to whether the wooden leg is made for one
of those uses.

What is the basis of their argument? If an amputee stands on the wooden foot which is affixed to
his leg, it certainly is an object made for standing upon. Why should it not be Mekabel Tum'as
Midras?

TOSFOS (65b, DH ha'Kite'a), the RITVA, and other Rishonim answer that the amputee does not
walk on the wooden stump.

The wooden stump is there primarily for cosmetic purposes. It is leaned upon only occasionally,
such as when the amputee is seated. In order to walk, the amputee uses crutches. He does not lean
on the leg enough for it to be considered an object made for leaning upon.

Alternatively, a wooden rod is tied to the bent knee of the amputee, and it is on that rod that he
walks. The wooden foot is intended merely to cover the stump which protrudes as he walks.

Amputation and Prosthetics in the Late Antique Period

Battle of Zama in Second Punic War, Giulio Romano 1521.

Warfare was not kind to the bodies of soldiers in Ancient Greece and Rome. It has been estimated
that in Ancient Greece, about 80% of seriously wounded soldiers died on the day of battle. Of the
remaining 20%, a third died of their injuries after returning home. It is not easy to make direct
comparisons with modern times, but these figures are certainly likely to be much higher. 1

Whether survivors in the ancient era were injured in battle by a blade, spear or missile, or in camp
by frostbite or trench foot, their arms, legs and extremities were incredibly vulnerable. In Ancient
Greece, they benefited from simple surgical amputations as far back as the late fifth or early fourth
century BC. The Hippocratic treatise On Joints attests to rudimentary amputations of fingers, toes,
hands and feet, but cautions against amputating an entire arm or leg.

Around the same time, orthopedic surgery had refined to the point that prostheses were starting to
become available as alternatives to staffs, sticks and crutches. We see this in the account of the
Graeco-Persian War (499-449BC) by the historian Herodotus, for instance. Herodotus recounts
how the Persian diviner Hegesistratus, when imprisoned by the Spartans, amputated part of his
own foot to escape his shackles, then procured a wooden replacement.

Egypt was using similar technology around the same period. Prosthetic toes made from wood or
layers of fiber known as cartonnage have been recovered from burial sites, such as the one from a
mummy near Luxor pictured below. They show signs of wear and tear, indicating that they were
functional rather than purely cosmetic.

Surgical techniques advanced considerably during the Hellenistic period (323-31BC), the last era
before Greek dominance gave way to Rome. These advances were thanks to medical practitioners
at the Museion and Library in Alexandria making in-depth anatomy studies by dissecting and even
vivisecting criminals sentenced to death.
This improved their understanding of the circulatory system and led them to discover that blood
vessels could be tied off to prevent bleeding, which meant that amputations could be done slowly
and carefully. There was less risk that the patient would die of blood loss, and stumps were now
more amenable to prosthesis use.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that prostheses advanced at the same time. An artificial leg
recovered from a tomb in Capua in southern Italy, dated to the late fourth or early third century
BC, had a wooden core covered in bronze sheeting. This was held in place by a leather and bronze
belt, which would have made movement easier.

Another example is the Roman general Marcus Sergius Silus. He lost his right hand during the
Second Punic War (218-201BC), which was fought between the Romans and Hannibal of Carthage
in latter-day Tunisia. But rather than retire, Silus procured an iron hand which he subsequently
used to bear his shield, transferring his sword to his left hand instead.

1
Jane Draycott , Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Research Fellow in Classics: Ancient Science & Technology, University of Glasgow
We historians do have to speculate here to some extent: we don’t know how soldiers acquired their
prostheses, since medical treatises do not mention these procedures. Yet it seems probable that the
technology improved due to the horrors of war – just as today’s advances are partly a response to
the unprecedented levels of multiple traumatic injuries that soldiers suffered in Afghanistan and
Iraq. And then as now, prostheses were collaborative efforts between medics, technologists and
artists.

After the ancient era, prostheses barely improved until the 16th century. That was when Ambroise
Paré, the royal surgeon to four successive French kings, invented mechanical versions including
knees and fingers capable of bending somewhat like the real thing.

6th century foot prosthesis found in Austria2

Archeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OAI) have discovered a rare foot and
lower leg prosthesis dating to the 6th century A.D. at the archaeological site of Hemmaberg, near
the village of Globasnitz, Carinthia, southern Austria. Several churches were built on the hill in
the late Roman, early medieval period and was a popular center of pilgrimage. There are several
burial grounds associated with the site, one of which is a small cemetery of 29 graves from the
Frankish period between 536 and around 600 A.D. It was in this cemetery that the skeletal remains
of an adult male between the age of 35 and 50 with a missing lower left leg was discovered in
2009.

The oldest known surviving example of a prosthetic device is a wood and leather big toe
replacement found in Thebes on the mummy of Tabaketenmut It dates to around 1065–710 B.C.
and shows signs of wear so we know Tabaketenmut walked on it in life; it wasn’t added by the
embalmers after death.

2
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemmaberg
There’s textual evidence of prosthetics in antiquity. Herodotus (484–425 B.C.) tells the story in
Book Nine of the Histories of Hegesistratus who cuts off half his foot to escape imprisonment and
fashions “a foot of wood” to wear after he heals.

Legendary or not (probably the former), the story indicates prosthetics were known in 5th century
Greece. Pliny’s Natural History (Book 7, Chapter 29) recounts the exploits of 3rd century B.C.
Roman general Marcus Sergius, hero of the Second Punic War, who fought through a great many
grievous wounds, including the loss of his right hand which deterred him not one bit. “He had a
right hand made of iron, and attached to the stump, after which he fought a battle, and raised the
siege of Cremona, defended Placentia, and took twelve of the enemy’s camps in Gaul.”

Archaeological evidence from classical antiquity, however, is very thin on the ground. In the 19th
century, a prosthetic lower leg made of a wooden core covered in sheets of bronze was unearthed
from a Roman burial in Capua dating to around 300 B.C. Unfortunately it no longer exists — it
was bought by the Royal College of Surgeons in London and destroyed in the Blitz in 1941 — and
any human remains found with it were not recorded so there’s no evidence of wear on the leg or
stress on the bones that can confirm it was a functional prosthetic limb rather than a post-mortem
addition for aesthetic purposes.

Only three other archaeological prosthetics are known until the 16th century:
a leather and wood foot found in a 5-7th century A.D.
burial in Switzerland (probably not used in life),
a bronze foot found in a 7th-8th century burial in Germany of limited use at best,
and the iron and wood prosthetic from the 6th century found in Hemmaberg.

That’s why it’s such a significant find, because surviving ancient prosthetic are so rare and skeletal
remains that can tell us something about how the person who wore the device and how it was used
are rarer still.

For more review on a recent conference on prosthetics in antiquity see:

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