How Exacty Was A Hook A Good Replacement For A Hand In The Pirate Days?

[Togo30]

I'm watching Peter pan (hook) and wondered what use was a hook? I would've thought if you lost your hand then the next best thing would be 5 hooks to replicate the lost hand? Why a singular hook? What use was that?

[humbersloop]

slack night in the static?

don't they have an onsite bar?

[Togo30]

Eh?

[RATTER15]

In those days it would have been very difficult and expensive to make 5 small hooks that were strong enough to be of much use, 1 large hook however would have been more practical.
What can you do with 5 small hooks that you cant do with one big one?

[humbersloop]

will a hook squeeze out your blackheads though?

[Togo30]

Ratter could a hook lift successfully a tankard of ale? The only thing a hook would've been good for is fishing and as a weapon.

Humbersloop i'd try anything as my nose looks horrible, there must be a half teaspoon of oil easily if i squeeze them out

[Mattk]

"could a hook lift successfully a tankard of ale?"

no but his other hand could.

[webbo3]

I can tell you two things it would be useless for, picking you nose and wiping your bum.



Dave.

[Old_Geezer]

A hook was cheap. A Swiss army hand replacement with 50 blades took all your doubloons/pieces of eight.

[EDDIE51]

History of artificial hands here
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2003_Groups/Hand_Prosthetics/history.html
A hook was very basic and probably only used if there were no resources to make anything better, on a pirate ship for example.
It is as well to remember that until the introduction of antiseptic surgery around 1850 , over 80% of people who had to have an amputation died from infection or loss of blood.

[jno]

good question... I mean, unless retired pirates used to find work as coat stands...

[heathfield]

I can't think of anything else that would enable them to hold on to any part of the ship in rough seas and allow them the use of their good hand.

[bookbinder]

Abu Hamza presumably manages, with a hook on his right arm. Given the quality of prosthetic surgery nowadays, he might have been able to have had a fitting that is more like a hand, but he chooses to make do with his right hook.