dirty_diana (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dirty_diana) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cap_chronism2015-02-27 02:48 pm
dirty_diana) wrote in cap_chronism2015-02-27 02:48 pm
Daniel Sousa and amputee history
Posting about Agent Carter with the permission of the mod.
Recently a tumblr user posed a question about the nature of Sousa's injury/prosthesis in the AC tag, which sent me into a bit of a google spiral trying to figure out what the options would have been. Trying to match Enver Gjokaj's performance to what the technology would have been at that time, our conclusions were best summarised by![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
yalumesse as
You can read our meandering chain of logic/research here. One source about the progress of prosthetic knee hydraulics I read but didn't explicitly credit is here, which adds that balance would also have been an issue.
We don't go into it much but it seems like a lot of the engineering progress was spurred by complaints and protests about lack of quality care and prosthesis availability that the veteran amputees were making in 1945-ish, which is an interesting read on Sousa's sometimes jaded tone.
Thenlilacsigil directed me to the life and times of Douglas Bader, who flew fighter planes for the RAF in WWII after his double amputation a few years before. About whom wikipedia says
Linking in case of interest and/or desire to correct our understanding of medical history. :)
Recently a tumblr user posed a question about the nature of Sousa's injury/prosthesis in the AC tag, which sent me into a bit of a google spiral trying to figure out what the options would have been. Trying to match Enver Gjokaj's performance to what the technology would have been at that time, our conclusions were best summarised by
So we can pretty much say that, if he has a prosthetic*, it’s got to be a socket type that starts somewhere on his thigh, has a knee joint, can take some weight but is stiff and can’t bend easily, but does bend, and he doesn’t need to use his hands to manually bend/lock it. He doesn’t absolutely need the crutch to move in emergencies, but probably can’t go without it too long without getting exhausted/causing more or long-term damage to himself. Sound right?
You can read our meandering chain of logic/research here. One source about the progress of prosthetic knee hydraulics I read but didn't explicitly credit is here, which adds that balance would also have been an issue.
We don't go into it much but it seems like a lot of the engineering progress was spurred by complaints and protests about lack of quality care and prosthesis availability that the veteran amputees were making in 1945-ish, which is an interesting read on Sousa's sometimes jaded tone.
Then
lilacsigil directed me to the life and times of Douglas Bader, who flew fighter planes for the RAF in WWII after his double amputation a few years before. About whom wikipedia says It was thought that Bader's success as a fighter pilot was partly because of his having no legs; pilots pulling high "g-forces" in combat turns often "blacked out" as the flow of blood from the brain drained to other parts of the body, usually the legs. As Bader had no legs he could remain conscious longer, and thus had an advantage over more able-bodied opponents.
Linking in case of interest and/or desire to correct our understanding of medical history. :)