Hand hooks?

[Mission]

Well, lookey here! Something I stumbled across while searching my notes from Pierre Labat's book on the privateers.

“Other items in the agreement are: That if a man be wounded he has to receive one écu a day as long as he remains in the surgeon’s hands up to sixty days, and this has to be paid or allowed for before any man receives his share. A man receives 600 écus for the loss of each limb, 300 écus for the loss of a thumb or the first finger of the right hand, or an eye, and 100 écus for each of the other fingers. If a man has a wooden leg or a hook for his arm and these happen to be destroyed, he receives the same amount as if they were his original limbs.” (Labat, p. 37)

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Well, lookey here! Something I stumbled across while searching my notes from Pierre Labat's book on the privateers.

“Other items in the agreement are: That if a man be wounded he has to receive one écu a day as long as he remains in the surgeon’s hands up to sixty days, and this has to be paid or allowed for before any man receives his share. A man receives 600 écus for the loss of each limb, 300 écus for the loss of a thumb or the first finger of the right hand, or an eye, and 100 écus for each of the other fingers. If a man has a wooden leg or a hook for his arm and these happen to be destroyed, he receives the same amount as if they were his original limbs.” (Labat, p. 37)

Eyes are there too

[Mission]

Yeah, that's why I found it. I am searching for info on eye surgery for you. This only agrees with your previous comment on eyes in the articles listed in Exquemelin's book, however. But we're confusing threads by having this conversation here.

However it's the first near period evidence I've seen for arm hooks and it relates to the buccaneers. I'd call that pretty good evidence for their use during/near period.

[Swashbuckler 1700]

So do I and pretty clear. Labat was well informed even if he did not saw all with this own eyes.....

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Lol I am posting Henry Johnson in all treads now but.. He seems to be a man with a missing arm http://www.thepirate...hnson_henry.htm

Edited June 12, 2012 by Swashbuckler 1700

[Mission]

Nice, another example of an amputated arm. No hook, though. I wonder where the source material is for him? (Hegwish & Pirate's Cove never give their sources.)

[Mission]

Not pirate and pre-GAoP, but still sort of neat. It's from the Calendar of State Papers Colonial, East Indies and Persia, Volume 8: 1630-1634:

"Part wages of Brute Gread, carpenter in the London, detained for a copper kettle, to be repaid to his wife Dorothy, it appearing by certificate that said kettle was brought ashore with the bottom burnt out and was afterwards cut in pieces and used about Mr. Muschamp's wooden leg. 4½ pp." (November 3, 1630)

[Bright]

I can not tell you the history on hand hooks but, in 2010 I had the misfortune to tear some tendon's in me right arm. After the surgery to reattach them they placed me in a brace to keep me from rotating me hand till the tendons had time to heal. As we were working with the Schiele Museum in Gastonia North Carolina Pirates exhibit I wore the hook as a cover up to the arm brace. As the public visited many asked and looked for a pirate with a hook. One lady went on a tangent about how everything that the group was up to was all fake and she singled out me and my hook, my Captain pulled her aside and told her that I was a injured vet and had removed my modern prosthesis hook and replaced it with the iron one for the exhibit and if she didn't believe him to feel my brace under my sleeve. Which she emedatly did. Her face turned ashen and she became very apologetic. I don't know if it guilted her into buying tickets to the buccaneers ball but I spied her again that evening at the ball.

I can say that using it all weekend in setting up camp and that even at the ball with glass setting snugly in the hook and my plate of food balanced on top of the glass that the hook was quite practical and very useful even without the modern ability to open or grip .

As me grandfather was a starfish me hand has grown back and I no longer need to were a hook ;-}

Edited March 13, 2014 by Bright

[Jib]

Great story, awesome picture Bright!

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Here once again a picture of hand hooks. Late thought. This one is a caricature made after the Battle of The Nile (1799) where Nelson and other officer are feeding a man (presenting England) with French ships.