24 Before-And-After Photos From The Early Days of Plastic Surgery
The photo on the right shows Yeo during treatment, and the photo on the left shows him after treatment was completed.
Wikimedia Commons A woman named Agnes Roberge makes plaster cast masks of patient's faces.Taken at the Christie Street Hospital in Toronto, 1944.
Library Archives Canada Patient identified as Sgt. Butcher receives treatment for his war wounds. Pictured here is a mask molded from Butcher's face. This mold will be adjusted and placed on his face to hide his disfigurements.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons A patient at Maryland's Walter Reed General Hospital poses with a plaster cast mask made of his face, date unspecified.US National Library of Medicine This patient received a reconstructive chin operation involving a custom molded mask. The patient is pictured here on the left with the mask off, and on the right with mask on .Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive Doctors would use masks particularly to cover areas near the eye. The eyeglasses this man is wearing aren't meant to improve his vision. Instead, they are holding the mask in place.In both pictures here, the man has received plastic surgery. The picture on the left, however, shows what he looks like without his mask.
Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive This man suffered serious damage to his nose after using something the annotator refers to only as "cancer paste." By taking skin from his cheeks, the doctors were able to reconstruct his nose.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive This man's face was completely destroyed. His surgeons made a mask of his nose, painted to match his skin color. The glasses hold the mask in place, and the beard helps him to hide where his skin ends and the mask begins.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive A soldier wounded in World War I receives skin grafts to treat the serious burns that cover his body.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons This soldier has opted to grow a mustache to hide his surgery scars.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons This woman's head has been completely scalped. The surgeons have applied a rubber mesh and will use it to direct skin grafts on the top of her head.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive The scalped woman from the previous slide seen after her skin grafting. With a wig, it is impossible to tell that she has ever been wounded.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive This woman lost much of her lip and sustained injuries to the surrounding area in an accident.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive The same woman pictured on the previous slide, now after surgery. Doctors pulled up nearby skin to replace the lost lip, letting the woman cover her teeth once more.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive A major growth appears on a woman after an ear piercing gets infected. The woman is treated with radiation therapy and surgery.In this case, the operation wasn't a full success. The woman returned two years later, with the growth coming back. The doctor who took the photo was careful to note, "This case was not under my personal care."
Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive After World War I ended, many of the surgeons who treated the soldiers during the war started private clinics and began offering their services to the public.This man was seriously burned 12 years before the technology existed to treat him. The surgeons were able to reapply his upper eyelid with skin taken from his arm.
Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive After an accident, this woman was left with severe scars across her face and cheeks and was unable to close her eyes.Through excisions and adjustments, the surgeons were able to restore her face and give her the ability to close her eyes once more.
Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive The surgery pictured here repaired this child's cleft palate.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive Two soldiers with gaping scars on their faces receive skin grafts.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons A man who has completely lost his jaw in battle receives plastic surgery that molds his face back into something more like what it once was.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons A child's body after serious burns. This child has already received several operations, but his body remains seriously scarred.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive With so much work already done on the boy (from the previous slide), the plastic surgeon doesn't have much skin to use for grafting. He is still, however, able to hide some of the boy's scars.Picture taken by Dr. John Staige Davis for the book Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, 1919.
Internet Archive This patient received skin grafts for his facial injuries, although the eye damage is harder to hide.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons Doctors rebuild a soldier's face following serious injury in battle.Photo taken by Dr. Albert Norman at London's King George Military Hospital, circa 1916-1918.
Wikimedia Commons
Before-And-After Photos Of Plastic Surgery’s Early Days View GalleryBefore it became predominantly associated with celebrity nips and tucks, plastic surgery was about saving lives. The medical procedure would change a person’s life – not by giving them a little extra confidence, but by making it possible to walk outside again.
On some level, plastic surgery has been around for thousands of years – but the idea really got started during World War I, when doctors performed the first skin graft. With the world at war, medical science made some incredible leaps that would change plastic surgery forever.
Sir Harold Gillies, a doctor from New Zealand, pioneered the early techniques. He performed the first-ever skin graft in 1917, on a British man named Walter Yeo. Yeo was a sailor who had been horribly burned in combat. His nose was shattered, and his eyelids were torn completely off.
Using skin from Yeo's neck and upper chest, Gillies made a mask of skin that he transplanted across Yeo’s face. It helped repair the damage that had been done, hiding his disfiguration and letting him close his eyes at night once more.
But it didn’t stop with Yeo. Gillies and his colleagues treated thousands of people before the war ended. Some had been burned by mustard gas and others left greatly disfigured by gunfire. Some lost entire sections of their faces.
When jaws and eyes were missing, the doctors made plaster masks -- sometimes held in place with a pair of spectacles -- that patients could wear to conceal the damage.
When the war ended, Gillies and his cousin, Archibald McIndoe, took their work to the public. They spread their techniques to doctors around the world, and private clinics started opening up.
In time, cosmetic surgery would come into fashion, and the world’s idea of plastic surgery would change. People would start getting nose jobs to look a little prettier or even to hide their ethnicities. Others would receive breast augmentations, liposuction, or face lifts.
But in the beginning, plastic surgery was the life-saving operation that made it possible for disfigured veterans and victims of horrific injuries to attempt to forge on. It was a new lease on life, proof that injury didn’t have to spell the end.
If you're still not squeamish and you're ready for more on the history of medicine and surgery, you can go in-depth on Walter Yeo, and discover the most evil science experiments ever performed as well as the weird history of breast implants.
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