 |
DAILY MAIL
13 July 2012
Incredible pictures reveal the pioneering plastic surgery carried out on First World War facial gunshot victim by leading British surgeon
(Tom Goodenough)
His is the face of one of the very bravest of our ancestors and his scars pay testament to the horrors he endured in the trenches of the Great War.
But staring back from the camera, the pictures also demonstrate the work of the pioneering British plastic surgeon who attempted to help some of the men get their lives back after they had suffered terrible injuries.
Dr Harold Gillies is renowned for developing the first skin grafting and plastic surgery techniques to treat the World War One soldiers left wounded with severe facial disfigurements.
The physician performed some 11,000 operations at the Queen's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, between 1917 and 1925.
And Dr Harold Gillies work was so groundbreaking that he eventually received a knighthood in 1930.
Until now, however, very little has been known about the family stories behind the surgeon's work.
But on the 130th anniversary of the surgeon's birth and 95th anniversary of the Sidcup hospital where plastic surgery began, details of the pioneering surgery have been released online.
The records are an index of the 2,328 soldiers who were treated at The Queen's Hospital during the war and in its aftermath, with information including their names, regiments, ranks and the injuries they sustained.
Debra Chatfield, family historian at findmypast.co.uk who are launching the files on their site, said Dr Harold Gillies work was inspiring: 'The medical world owes a great deal to Dr Gillies, as do those who were treated by him in the early twentieth century and anyone who has ever received plastic surgery treatment since then.
'Without his pioneering developments in this field, plastic surgery might not be as advanced as it is today.
'These records are an important source of information for historians, the medical world and those interested in learning about the reality and aftermath of World War I.'
Due to the sensitive nature of some of the medical information, many of the hospital records and individual photographs will not be published online.
However, those whose ancestors were injured in the First World War and underwent surgery can search the collection to see if they received treatment from Dr Gillies' team.
The index makes for fascinating reading, as it conveys the extent of facial disfigurements suffered by some soldiers and shows how quickly life could change for a soldier in the First World War.
One patient who can be found in the records was Richard Walker, a Private in the Royal Lancaster Regiment of the British contingent, 3rd battalion.
Aged only 20 years old, he was wounded on 23rd October 1918 and admitted to The Queen's Hospital with a 'gunshot wound lower lip' - a severe disfigurement that would require specialist attention if he were to go on to lead a normal life again.
Another example is William M. Spreckley, a Lieutenant from the Sherwood Foresters Service in the British contingent, 16th battalion.
He was Gillies' 132nd patient and was admitted to the hospital in January 1917 at the age of 33 with a 'gunshot wound nose'.
It was three-and-a-half years before doctors were able to discharge him in October 1920.
Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Museums & Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons, said the British surgeon was a 'founding figure in the history of plastic surgery':
'(He developed) innovative procedures to help reconstruct the faces of badly injured soldiers and airmen, whose facial injuries were caused by bullet wounds and flying shrapnel and needed extensive bone, muscle and skin grafting to restore their appearance.
'Most notably, Gillies introduced the tubed pedicle which used the patients' own tissue to aid reconstructive surgery and reduce the chance of rejection.
'The files associated with his work are an unparalleled resource for the study of this important branch of medicine and family history.'
* * *
Henry Pickerill and Harold Gillies: the changing faces of war
Harold Gillies and Henry Pickerill's pioneering treatment of soldiers with facial wounds during the First World War helped form the basis of modern plastic and facial reconstructive surgery. Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and made a career in England; Pickerill was born in England and became the first director of the University of Otago's dental school in Dunedin. During the First World War the two served at Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup, Kent, a specialist hospital for facial injuries, where Gillies led the British section and Pickerill the New Zealand section. The two men were highly competitive and Pickerill, in particular, refused to acknowledge his Kiwi colleague's contribution. But they each contributed to the development of plastic surgery.
- - -
Pickerill took leave from the university in 1916 to join the New Zealand Dental Corps. Arriving in England in March 1917, he transferred to the New Zealand Medical Corps and established a unit for the treatment of facial and jaw injuries at No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.
- - -
Gillies was 32 years old when war was declared. He volunteered for the Red Cross and in 1915 joined a Belgian ambulance unit as a commissioned officer. While serving in France, Gillies became aware of the many soldiers suffering jaw and facial wounds. On his return to the United Kingdom, he persuaded the military authorities to establish a specialist ward for facial injuries at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot.
On 1 July 1916 the Somme offensive took place and, although the hospital had been allocated an extra 200 beds, it was overwhelmed when 2000 patients turned up - 'a stream of wounded, men with half their faces literally blown to pieces, with the skin left hanging in shreds and the jawbones crushed to a pulp that felt like sand under your fingers.'
- - -
It was decided to create a purpose-built facility for soldiers with facial injuries - Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup in Kent, which opened in July 1917 with around 300 beds. Its capacity was quickly increased to 560 beds, but eventually nearby hospitals and private houses were also pressed into service. Some of the benches in Sidcup were painted blue, indicating that they were for patient use only - and to warn the public that they might be occupied by someone who was distressing to look at.
Gillies, in command of the hospital, decided to open it to soldiers and staff from Britain's dominions, and to divide it into units. The British section was led by Gillies and the New Zealand section by Major Henry Pickerill.
RESTORING FACES
The two major innovations that Gillies introduced were the tubedpedicle method and the epithelial outlay technique for reconstructing eyelids. He famously trialled both procedures on 20-year-old Able Seaman Willie Vicarage, who had been badly burnt in an explosion during the battle of Jutland in 1916. Tube pedicles were created by cutting out a flap of healthy skin from the chest, shaping it into a tube, then attaching it to the graft area on the face. This resulted in a 'pipeline' of living tissue with a good blood supply, and it also closed off the graft area to infection. Gillies developed the eyelid technique after worrying about Vicarage, who had to spend all night during an air-raid trying to sleep with his eyes open because his lids had been burnt off.
The New Zealand section, led by Pickerill, treated over 200 New Zealand, British and other Commonwealth troops. Pickerill quickly earned a reputation as a first-class plastic and maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgeon. Supported by surgeons, dentists, anaesthetists and medical illustrators, he was part of a team that helped pioneer new techniques of tissue transfer, higher standards of hygiene to combat infection and new methods of administering anaesthesia.
For men missing parts of their face and jaw, treatment was a slow and gradual process, sometimes taking several years to complete. To avoid sepsis (blood infection), surgical procedures were carried out in stages. Depending on the severity of the wound, a patient at Sidcup could undergo as many as a dozen operations. Pickerill kept meticulous records of his section's work. Photographs, watercolour sketches, diagrams and wax models recorded each stage of treatment.
RIVALRY
Pickerill and Gillies enjoyed a 'healthy' rivalry at Sidcup. Both men had strong personalities and this led to differences of opinion on occasions. After the war, Pickerill and Gillies jealously guarded their reputations by claiming ownership of developments and techniques pioneered at the hospital.
- - -
Pickerill, his team and 59 patients returned to New Zealand in 1919, where treatment continued at the facial and jaw department of Dunedin Hospital. Pickerill also resumed his position as dean of the dental school. Later he decided to specialise in plastic surgery - first in Sydney, then in Wellington and Auckland, and finally at Bassam Hospital in Lower Hutt, which he and his second wife, Cecily, also a surgeon, established in 1939. It specialised in treating cleft lips and palates in children. He died in 1956.
- - -
After the war, Gillies continued to perform reconstructive surgery and also pioneered transgender and cosmetic surgery. He was awarded a knighthood in 1930, before returning to medical service during the Second World War. In 1946 he was elected the first president of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons.
[...] He was never good at saving, which is why he was unable to retire after the Second World War, and he kept working until shortly before his death on 10 September 1960. He was 78 years old.
HIDDEN TRACK: http://drive.google.com/file/d/17TTCQezip7PycAdAOSwX0HNy3DxUyFDT
Fontes:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173166/Pioneering-plastic-surgery-First-World-War.html
http://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/video/pickerill-and-gillies-great-war-story
Mais:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/great-war-stories-gillies-pickerill-2014
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueules_cassées
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-birthplace-of-plastic-surgery/3814
13 July 2012
Incredible pictures reveal the pioneering plastic surgery carried out on First World War facial gunshot victim by leading British surgeon
(Tom Goodenough)
His is the face of one of the very bravest of our ancestors and his scars pay testament to the horrors he endured in the trenches of the Great War.
But staring back from the camera, the pictures also demonstrate the work of the pioneering British plastic surgeon who attempted to help some of the men get their lives back after they had suffered terrible injuries.
Dr Harold Gillies is renowned for developing the first skin grafting and plastic surgery techniques to treat the World War One soldiers left wounded with severe facial disfigurements.
The physician performed some 11,000 operations at the Queen's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, between 1917 and 1925.
And Dr Harold Gillies work was so groundbreaking that he eventually received a knighthood in 1930.
Until now, however, very little has been known about the family stories behind the surgeon's work.
But on the 130th anniversary of the surgeon's birth and 95th anniversary of the Sidcup hospital where plastic surgery began, details of the pioneering surgery have been released online.
The records are an index of the 2,328 soldiers who were treated at The Queen's Hospital during the war and in its aftermath, with information including their names, regiments, ranks and the injuries they sustained.
Debra Chatfield, family historian at findmypast.co.uk who are launching the files on their site, said Dr Harold Gillies work was inspiring: 'The medical world owes a great deal to Dr Gillies, as do those who were treated by him in the early twentieth century and anyone who has ever received plastic surgery treatment since then.
'Without his pioneering developments in this field, plastic surgery might not be as advanced as it is today.
'These records are an important source of information for historians, the medical world and those interested in learning about the reality and aftermath of World War I.'
Due to the sensitive nature of some of the medical information, many of the hospital records and individual photographs will not be published online.
However, those whose ancestors were injured in the First World War and underwent surgery can search the collection to see if they received treatment from Dr Gillies' team.
The index makes for fascinating reading, as it conveys the extent of facial disfigurements suffered by some soldiers and shows how quickly life could change for a soldier in the First World War.
One patient who can be found in the records was Richard Walker, a Private in the Royal Lancaster Regiment of the British contingent, 3rd battalion.
Aged only 20 years old, he was wounded on 23rd October 1918 and admitted to The Queen's Hospital with a 'gunshot wound lower lip' - a severe disfigurement that would require specialist attention if he were to go on to lead a normal life again.
Another example is William M. Spreckley, a Lieutenant from the Sherwood Foresters Service in the British contingent, 16th battalion.
He was Gillies' 132nd patient and was admitted to the hospital in January 1917 at the age of 33 with a 'gunshot wound nose'.
It was three-and-a-half years before doctors were able to discharge him in October 1920.
Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Museums & Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons, said the British surgeon was a 'founding figure in the history of plastic surgery':
'(He developed) innovative procedures to help reconstruct the faces of badly injured soldiers and airmen, whose facial injuries were caused by bullet wounds and flying shrapnel and needed extensive bone, muscle and skin grafting to restore their appearance.
'Most notably, Gillies introduced the tubed pedicle which used the patients' own tissue to aid reconstructive surgery and reduce the chance of rejection.
'The files associated with his work are an unparalleled resource for the study of this important branch of medicine and family history.'
* * *
Henry Pickerill and Harold Gillies: the changing faces of war
Harold Gillies and Henry Pickerill's pioneering treatment of soldiers with facial wounds during the First World War helped form the basis of modern plastic and facial reconstructive surgery. Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and made a career in England; Pickerill was born in England and became the first director of the University of Otago's dental school in Dunedin. During the First World War the two served at Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup, Kent, a specialist hospital for facial injuries, where Gillies led the British section and Pickerill the New Zealand section. The two men were highly competitive and Pickerill, in particular, refused to acknowledge his Kiwi colleague's contribution. But they each contributed to the development of plastic surgery.
- - -
Pickerill took leave from the university in 1916 to join the New Zealand Dental Corps. Arriving in England in March 1917, he transferred to the New Zealand Medical Corps and established a unit for the treatment of facial and jaw injuries at No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.
- - -
Gillies was 32 years old when war was declared. He volunteered for the Red Cross and in 1915 joined a Belgian ambulance unit as a commissioned officer. While serving in France, Gillies became aware of the many soldiers suffering jaw and facial wounds. On his return to the United Kingdom, he persuaded the military authorities to establish a specialist ward for facial injuries at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot.
On 1 July 1916 the Somme offensive took place and, although the hospital had been allocated an extra 200 beds, it was overwhelmed when 2000 patients turned up - 'a stream of wounded, men with half their faces literally blown to pieces, with the skin left hanging in shreds and the jawbones crushed to a pulp that felt like sand under your fingers.'
- - -
It was decided to create a purpose-built facility for soldiers with facial injuries - Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup in Kent, which opened in July 1917 with around 300 beds. Its capacity was quickly increased to 560 beds, but eventually nearby hospitals and private houses were also pressed into service. Some of the benches in Sidcup were painted blue, indicating that they were for patient use only - and to warn the public that they might be occupied by someone who was distressing to look at.
Gillies, in command of the hospital, decided to open it to soldiers and staff from Britain's dominions, and to divide it into units. The British section was led by Gillies and the New Zealand section by Major Henry Pickerill.
RESTORING FACES
The two major innovations that Gillies introduced were the tubedpedicle method and the epithelial outlay technique for reconstructing eyelids. He famously trialled both procedures on 20-year-old Able Seaman Willie Vicarage, who had been badly burnt in an explosion during the battle of Jutland in 1916. Tube pedicles were created by cutting out a flap of healthy skin from the chest, shaping it into a tube, then attaching it to the graft area on the face. This resulted in a 'pipeline' of living tissue with a good blood supply, and it also closed off the graft area to infection. Gillies developed the eyelid technique after worrying about Vicarage, who had to spend all night during an air-raid trying to sleep with his eyes open because his lids had been burnt off.
The New Zealand section, led by Pickerill, treated over 200 New Zealand, British and other Commonwealth troops. Pickerill quickly earned a reputation as a first-class plastic and maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgeon. Supported by surgeons, dentists, anaesthetists and medical illustrators, he was part of a team that helped pioneer new techniques of tissue transfer, higher standards of hygiene to combat infection and new methods of administering anaesthesia.
For men missing parts of their face and jaw, treatment was a slow and gradual process, sometimes taking several years to complete. To avoid sepsis (blood infection), surgical procedures were carried out in stages. Depending on the severity of the wound, a patient at Sidcup could undergo as many as a dozen operations. Pickerill kept meticulous records of his section's work. Photographs, watercolour sketches, diagrams and wax models recorded each stage of treatment.
RIVALRY
Pickerill and Gillies enjoyed a 'healthy' rivalry at Sidcup. Both men had strong personalities and this led to differences of opinion on occasions. After the war, Pickerill and Gillies jealously guarded their reputations by claiming ownership of developments and techniques pioneered at the hospital.
- - -
Pickerill, his team and 59 patients returned to New Zealand in 1919, where treatment continued at the facial and jaw department of Dunedin Hospital. Pickerill also resumed his position as dean of the dental school. Later he decided to specialise in plastic surgery - first in Sydney, then in Wellington and Auckland, and finally at Bassam Hospital in Lower Hutt, which he and his second wife, Cecily, also a surgeon, established in 1939. It specialised in treating cleft lips and palates in children. He died in 1956.
- - -
After the war, Gillies continued to perform reconstructive surgery and also pioneered transgender and cosmetic surgery. He was awarded a knighthood in 1930, before returning to medical service during the Second World War. In 1946 he was elected the first president of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons.
[...] He was never good at saving, which is why he was unable to retire after the Second World War, and he kept working until shortly before his death on 10 September 1960. He was 78 years old.
HIDDEN TRACK: http://drive.google.com/file/d/17TTCQezip7PycAdAOSwX0HNy3DxUyFDT
Fontes:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173166/Pioneering-plastic-surgery-First-World-War.html
http://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/video/pickerill-and-gillies-great-war-story
Mais:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/great-war-stories-gillies-pickerill-2014
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueules_cassées
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-birthplace-of-plastic-surgery/3814
