Amputation

Amputation
Other names	Severed limb
An amputee running with a blade prosthetic
Specialty	Surgery Physical medicine and rehabilitation Emergency medicine
Complications	Phantom limb syndrome
Causes	Trauma or intentional as part of surgery and sometimes corporal punishment.

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Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventive surgery for such problems. A special case is that of congenital amputation, a congenital disorder, where fetal limbs have been cut off by constrictive bands. In some countries, judicial amputation is currently used to punish people who commit crimes.^[1][2][3][4] Amputation has also been used as a tactic in war and acts of terrorism; it may also occur as a war injury. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment.^[5][6][7] When done by a person, the person executing the amputation is an amputator.^[8][9] The oldest evidence of this practice comes from a skeleton found buried in Liang Tebo cave, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo dating back to at least 31,000 years ago, where it was done when the amputee was a young child.^[10]