Pegleg

"Wooden leg" redirects here. For the Cheyenne warrior, see Wooden Leg.

Pegleg of Gen. Józef Sowiński

A pegleg is a prosthesis, more specifically an artificial limb of carved wood fitted to the remaining stump of a human leg, as often seen in pirate movies. Wooden peg legs have been replaced by more modern materials, though some sports prostheses do have the same form.

Famous peg leg wearers

Historical

• François Leclerc (~1554), privateer
• Cornelis Jol, (1597–1641), privateer and admiral of the Dutch West India Company
• Peter Stuyvesant (1612–1672), Dutch director-general of New Amsterdam
• Clayton Bates (Peg Leg Bates) (1907–1998), dancer, Afro-American amputee RAK
• Blas de Lezo (1687–1741), Spanish admiral
• Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816), American politician
• Józef Sowiński (1777–1831), Polish 19th century general
• Daniel Sullivan (~1871), Chicagoan
• Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith (1801–1866), American prospector
• Robert McAlpin Williamson (1804? – December 22, 1859), nicknamed "Three legged Willie", Republic of Texas Supreme Court Justice, state lawmaker and Texas Ranger.
• Peg Leg Sam (Arthur Jackson) (1911–1977) American blues musician
• Dennis Collins, British sailor
• Giraud de Mauleon Seigneur de Gourdan, French governor of Calais^{[citation needed]}

Fictional

• Pete, Disney's oldest recurring character.
• Captain Ahab, character in Moby Dick
• Silas Wegg, character in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
• Wirt, character in the computer games Diablo and Diablo II. His pegleg can be used to open the Secret Cow Level.
• Fidget from The Great Mouse Detective.
• Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, character from the Harry Potter books and movies.
• Seamus, a character in the American animated television series Family Guy who not only has two peglegs, but two peg arms as well.
• Jonathan Small a character in the Sherlock Holmes story The Sign of the Four.
• Hector Barbossa, a character in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Not Quite Peglegs in Fiction

• Long John Silver in the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson, was missing a leg, but did not have a peg leg. He hopped around on a crutch. Ironically, most people associate him with pirates having peg legs.
• Davy Jones, a character in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, was missing a leg, but it was replaced by the leg of a crab.
• The Scotsman, in the Samurai Jack TV series, has his missing leg replaced by a machine gun.
• Cherry Darling, in the Grindhouse film Planet Terror, has a missing leg replaced by an assault rifle.

Railroads

• Fulton Chain Railroad also known as the "Peg Leg" from its wooden rails.
• Bradford and Foster Brook Railway also known as the "Peg Leg" from its wooden support piles.

Further reading

Books

• Murdoch, George and Wilson, A. Bennett (1998) A primer on amputations and artificial limbs C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, ISBN 0-398-06800-3
• Pitkin, Mark R. (2009) Biomechanics of Lower Limb Prosthetics Springer verlag, New York, ISBN 978-3-642-03015-4
• Seymour, Ron (2002) Prosthetics and orthotics: lower limb and spinal Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ISBN 0-7817-2854-1
• Warren, D. W. (2001) James Gillingham: surgical mechanist & manufacturer of artificial limbs Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society, Taunton, England, ISBN 0-9533539-5-8

Articles

• Bliquez, L. J. (1996) "Prosthetics in classical antiquity: Greek, Etruscan and Roman prosthetics" In: Haase, W. and Temporini, H. (editors) (1996) Aufstieg und niedergang der Römischen welt II Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 2640–2676
• Cantos, Mae (2005) "Pirates & Peg Legs: a Historical Look at Amputation and Prosthetics" In: Whitelaw, William A. (2005) (editor) Proceedings of the 14h Annual History of Medicine Days Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, pp. 16–20, OCLC 225558769
• Finch, J. (2011) "The ancient origins of prosthetic medicine" Lancet 377(9765): pp. 548–549
• Padula, Patricia A. and Friedmann, Lawrence W. (1987) "Acquired Amputation and Prostheses Before the Sixteenth Century" The Journal of Vascular Disease 38(2 Pt. 1): pp. 133–141, doi: 10.1177/000331978703800207
• Reeves, Nicholas (1999) "New lights on ancient Egyptian prosthetic medicine" In: Davies, W. V. (editor) (1999) Studies in Egyptian Antiquities. A Tribute to T.G.H. James British Museum Press, London, pp. 73–77, ISBN 0-86159-123-2
• Thurston, Alan J. (2007) "Paré and prosthetics: the early history of artificial limbs" ANZ Journal of Surgery 77(12): pp. 1114–1119, doi: 10.1111/j.1445-2197.2007.04330.x
• Wilson, Philip D. (1922) "Early weight-bearing in the treatment of amputations of the lower limbs" The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 4: pp. 224–247