Bucket leg

History

Peg legs were the cheapest and most basic prostheses available to those who had lost legs. These devices commonly consisted of hollow wooden buckets or cups into which the stump of the user was placed. Surgical instrument makers called these devices “bucket legs” as opposed to “peg legs” to differentiate them from the other (often more sophisticated and expensive) prostheses that they sold. There were also types of peg leg designed for below-the-knee amputees, which did not include a bucket but instead a padded rest that the user could kneel on thus reducing pressure on the end of the stump. For more on the artificial legs available in the nineteenth century and the distinction between peg legs and artificial legs, see chapter 4 of Ryan Sweet’s free 2022 book Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.