[Sculptor of The Cripple of the Geneva Museum of Art and History. An ancient Greek portrayal of hemimelia?].

An archaic Greek terracotta vase in the Art and History Museum at Geneva depicts a man deprived of his left arm and with two legs ending in a stump below the knees. Did he suffer from a traumatism (amputation), a mutilating disease or congenital malformation (hemimelia)? A survey of written and iconographic sources throws light on the methods and limits of ancient surgery, and on the chances of survival of abnormal children in archaic and classical Greece.