After Walter Yeo lost both eyelids in WWI, he underwent one of the world’s first plastic surgeries. But was the horrifying treatment worse than the injury?
Walter Yeo , a sailor injured in battle , was the first modern plastic surgery patient role . Image reservoir : Wikimedia Commons
Our aesculapian skill is a somewhat good measuring stick of how much we ’ve germinate . Whereashistorical curative for mental illnessonce ask drilling mess into human skull , we can now do thing likere - engineer the polio vaccinethat we ourselves make to also assail certain types of brain malignant neoplastic disease .
Even on the cosmetic side , doctors have catch so good at plastic surgery that they can literally makereal - biography Barbie and Ken wench . But back in 1916 , that was all just science fiction .
Walter Yeo, a sailor injured in battle, was the first modern plastic surgery patient. Image Source:Wikimedia Commons
So when a 25 - year - honest-to-god English Panama hat constitute Walter Yeo lost his upper and lower eyelid while manning the guns on the HMS Warspite during World War 1 , there was n’t much hope for a solution . Luckily , just a class subsequently , Sir Harold Gillies ( the “ father of shaping surgery ” ) had a pioneering — and , by today ’s standard , utterly gruesome — thought .
Gillies transplant a mask of tegument over Walter Yeo ’s face and centre in what was then an forward-looking new proficiency predict “ tubed pedicle . ” This meant that Gillies cut a long flap of skin from Yeo ’s thorax and pulled it until it covered the disfigured area of Yeo ’s face .
The skin newly moved to the face was never completely discerp from the chest , however . Thus , “ tube ” of Yeo ’s own tegument connected his chest and his look . This ensured blood hang and prevent infection at the graft site . The tubes were eventually hit when the nerve bribery was healthily in place ( see more explanation here ) .
After the operation was successfully completed , Yeo ’s eyelids were never full restored , but he was provided a better lineament of life sentence . He actually returned to duty ( and was n’t set down until 1921 ) , then fathered his 2d small fry , and lived with his married woman , mostly in his hometown of Plymouth , until his death in 1960 at old age 70 .
By today ’s standards , you certainly could n’t call Walter Yeo ’s surgical process an aesthetic success , but at the time , it was a aesculapian miracle .
Next , hold in out threeamazing medical advancesthat are crusade back against disease , and then discover the warped side of medical “ science ” with this depth psychology of the contribution ofNazi research .
