environment in the United States (and the rest of the world), combined
with the technological explosion and the advancement of antimicrobial
drugs, set the stage for the rise of implants.
In preparation for his planned presentation at the International Surgical
Conference in Berlin in 1890, Themistocles Gluck collaborated with
medical instrument manufacturers and the royal furniture craftsmen to fit
a human skeleton with ivory shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee, and ankle
replacements. One can imagine the hours of labor required to assemble the
human bones together with the handcrafted ivory replacement joints, but
after being rejected by his German surgical counterparts (fearing his work
would disgrace German science), Gluck wasn’t allowed to present his
exhibit, which came to be known as the “Skeleton of Paris.”^14 It was
displayed around Europe for decades, but was lost to the Soviets after
World War II. Conceptually, Frankenstein’s monster had gone from a
fantastical horror creation to a skeleton that was an osseous and ivory
amalgam.
Within a few decades of the war, a television show premiered in 1973 in
which a US astronaut named Steve Austin is severely injured in an
experimental aircraft crash. Barely alive, he becomes the Six Million
Dollar Man. Portraying the next promethean creator, the mysterious
government operative Oscar Goldman intones, “Gentlemen, we can
rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was.
Better ... stronger ... faster.”