Now plastic surgeries are not something unusual – if desired, any person can change in his appearance what seems imperfect to him, after which many persons become completely unrecognizable. But if now a change in appearance is a common occurrence, then at the beginning of the 20th century such interventions were allowed only when absolutely necessary, but despite this, plastic surgery remained illegal for a long time. Read the article about the first plastic surgeries in the world.
Over time, attitudes towards medicine and surgery became more positive, but until the beginning of the 20th century, operations to change the appearance were illegal, despite the fact that they were necessary, for example, with extensive facial burns. However, this did not prevent selfless surgeons from carrying out operations to restore lost facial tissues. Doctors consciously took risks, because if the plastic surgery did not give the desired result, they instantly incurred the wrath of society and religious organizations.
1. Walter Yeoh
During the naval battle, the man received a severe head injury. In 1917, Sir Harold Gillis undertook the restoration of the disfigured face of a sailor, who would later become the "father of plastic surgery." Gillis created a special department where he worked on the creation of new methods for restoring a damaged appearance. In those days, people perceived the skill of the surgeon as some kind of magic, because he was able to restore the lost faces of people.
2. William Sprecley
In 1917, William Spreckley received a shrapnel wound to the head and was hospitalized, and three years later the lieutenant's appearance was significantly improved thanks to the efforts of the surgeon, becoming his 132 “plastic” patient. Notably, Sprecley's case – one of the first complete and successful plastic surgeries to change the shape of the nose.
3. Willie Vicarage
Willy Vicarage – the first person to whom doctors were able to restore the lower jaw. When the young man woke up after the battle, looking at himself in the mirror, he was horrified. Vicarage's face was disfigured, but Willy was very lucky, as the outstanding Harold Gillis took up the correction of his face. For this case, Gillis decided to use the then innovative stalked flap technique, for which the surgeon made incisions in the chest and then attached a large flap of skin to the lower part of the patient's face, while the rest was folded and sutured in the form of a tube. The restoration of the chin took place layer by layer, and due to the live donor skin, no infections were introduced into the wound.
4. Michael Dillon Michael
Dillon was also a patient of the famous British surgeon Harold Gillis. Dillon was born a woman, but all his life he dreamed of changing sex. In 1939, he approached Dr. George Foss, who is known for his experiments with testosterone to suppress heavy menstrual flow in female patients.
Dillon's case caught the attention of the then most respected plastic surgeon in the world, Harold Gillis, who agreed to perform such an operation, but on the condition that the patient provide documents that could confirm the legality of the sex change. In 1946, all the formalities were settled, the doctor began to work. The patient underwent 13 operations over three years, and "according to the documents" he was a patient with an acute form of hypospadias. In this way, Gillis hoped to hide the fact of the operation in order to avoid a negative reaction from the conservative public.
5. Mademoiselle Joffre
In 1926, the world's first fat removal operation took place, which ended in complete failure. A certain Mademoiselle Joffre turned to the surgeon Charles Dujarier with a request for an operation to pump out fat deposits in the shins and knees. The operation turned out to be a failure – one of the incisions became infected and the woman had to amputate her leg. The patient sued the surgeon and demanded compensation in the amount of 200,000 francs. Two years later, the judges found Charles Dujarier guilty of conducting illegal medical experiments.
Source estet-portal.com
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