First person to undergo plastic surgery

[Kyt]

Pictures of first person to undergo plastic surgery released - Telegraph

The images of a wounded First World War soldier who became the first person to undergo plastic surgery have been released in an attempt to trace his family.

The photographs show before, during and after pictures of the ground-breaking medical procedure carried out on sailor Walter Yeo.

Walter sustained terrible facial injuries including the loss of upper and lower eyelids while manning the guns aboard HMS Warspite in 1916.

In 1917 he was treated by Sir Harold Gillies - the first man to use skin grafts from undamaged areas on the body - and know as 'the father of plastic surgery'.

London-based Gillies opened a specialist ward for the treatment of the facially-wounded at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent.

Walter Yeo is thought to be the first patient to benefit from his newly-developed technique - a form of skin grafting called 'tubed pedical'.

The young sailor, of Plymouth, Devon, was given new eyelids with a 'mask' of skin grafted across his face and eyes.

Artist Paddy Hartley, 37, has previously used the images in an exhibition and is now attempting to track down Walter's family to find out what happened to him.

Paddy, of London, said: "This tragedy catalysed the surgeon to transform the fledgling discipline of plastic surgery.

"Walter Yeo last went for treatment at the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth 1938, but little else is known about him.

"It would be interesting to know what happened to him in the years that followed.

"I'm keen to find out how he and his family coped with the consequences of his injuries and subsequent surgery."

Walter was born in 1890 and after marrying wife Ada was severely injured during the battle of Jutland while manning guns.

Records show he was admitted to Sir Harry Gillies' care on August 8, 1917 - just two months after he opened his specialist hospital.

Documents show after the procedure Walter, a gunnery warrant officer, was 'improved, but still had severe disfigurement'.

Paddy said: "The First World War was a war dominated by high explosives and heavy artillery.

"Casualties treated by Sir Harold Gillies included an unprecedented number with horrific facial injuries.

"Often unable to see, hear, speak, eat or drink, they struggled to re-assimilate back into civilian life."

Gillies is credited with developing new, untried techniques to treat the injuries created by this new kind of war, taking grafts from undamaged areas of flesh.

He used tubular 'pedicles' from the forehead, scalp, chest, neck or shoulders but retained a connection to allow blood flow.

Paddy has previously used similar images for an exhibition called Faces of Battle at the National Army Museum in London.

The Queen's Hospital, opened in June 1917, provided over 1,000 beds.

There Gillies and his colleagues developed many techniques of plastic surgery and carried more than 11,000 operations on over 5,000 men.

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by Kyt

Pictures of first person to undergo plastic surgery released - Telegraph

God Bless him ! ... heres a bit more ....

THE TRUE FACE OF MODERN WAR

HMS Warspite

Annie

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by liverpool annie

God Bless him ! ... heres a bit more ....

THE TRUE FACE OF MODERN WAR

HMS Warspite

Annie

My friend Karen found his marriage

Yeo, Walter E. O'N
Edwards, Ada
Vol. 5b Page 432
Jan/Feb/Mar
1914
Plymouth

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by liverpool annie

My friend Karen found his marriage

Yeo, Walter E. O'N
Edwards, Ada
Vol. 5b Page 432
Jan/Feb/Mar
1914
Plymouth

here's a birth for a daughter

Name: Doreen Y Yeo
Year of Registration: 1919
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
Mother's Maiden Name: Edwards
District: Plymouth
County: Devon
Volume: 5b
Page: 456

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by liverpool annie

here's a birth for a daughter

Name: Doreen Y Yeo
Year of Registration: 1919
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
Mother's Maiden Name: Edwards
District: Plymouth
County: Devon
Volume: 5b
Page: 456

Heres Paddy Hartley's website ! .... they were amazingly brave men !

Project facade

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by liverpool annie

Heres Paddy Hartley's website ! .... they were amazingly brave men !

Project facade

My friend on GWF said this a few years ago when the subject came up about the terrible injuries suffered and the plastic surgery done on the Western front also !

I would expect that the reason few Disfigured Ex WW1 Veterans were seen is that the Majority would have died sooner than normal as a result of their injury or would have been kept in homes especially established to keep them from Public Gaze &{I seem to recall a traumatic 1960s TV Programme~Play}of a Multiple Limb amputee in such a home being kept in a Moses Basket Affair on a Trolley Bed,for many years}That said I have the DCM Group of a Stretcher Bearer who lost a leg rescuing a Colleague,who led an Active Life as a Railway Worker & lived into the 1960s,but adversely an MM & Bar winner who having lost an Arm & post~war his Wife to a Warwickshire Cricketer,committed suicide in 1934,I am sure life was very difficult for all these War Damaged Men,there was no Counselling,Outreach groups,or the like;most chose the company of like minded souls,in various Ex Service organisations,where No questions would be asked as their comrades understood as outsiders couldn't,Many were employed in the British Legion Poppy Factory,being housed in Legion accomodation,safe from the outside world,Others,including My Maternal Grandfather,ravaged by Gas in 1915,turned to Alchohol,to try to numb the horror of his youth.It was a different time.Society viewed these things differently as did the Powers that be.

[Kyt]

Thanks for the additional info Annie - I was hoping you would turn up something.

However, as to the post of the GWF, there has been quite a bit research recently on the post-war casualty rehabilitation, and it is amazing how much "normalisation" went on in the communities across the country. Most of the efforts were made by private and/or local organisations, rather than governmental. So homes were set up, even catering for entire families, but very often the rules were so stringent that the ex-serviceman and his family returned to their original community.

A couple of excellent books on the subject are:

The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939 by D Cohen

and

Disabled Veterans in History, edited by David A. Gerber

[liverpool annie]

Originally Posted by Kyt

Thanks for the additional info Annie - I was hoping you would turn up something.

However, as to the post of the GWF, there has been quite a bit research recently on the post-war casualty rehabilitation, and it is amazing how much "normalisation" went on in the communities across the country. Most of the efforts were made by private and/or local organisations, rather than governmental. So homes were set up, even catering for entire families, but very often the rules were so stringent that the ex-serviceman and his family returned to their original community.

A couple of excellent books on the subject are:

The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939 by D Cohen

and

Disabled Veterans in History, edited by David A. Gerber

Thanks K ..... I'll have to see if I can find those books ! .... I did find this piece also !

The guinea Pig Club members were men so badly burned and disfigured that radical new techniques in plastic surgery were needed – and developed – to repair the damage.

In 1940 when the Battle of Britain began, Hurricane and Spitfire pilots, suffering from burns were taken to what was to become the world’s famous hospital in East Grinstead, England. On the 20th of July 1941, some of these airmen were passing their time chatting in a newly erected hut at the hospital. One of them suggested forming a club. Someone suggested the name “Guinea Pig Club”. Burn and reconstructive surgery was in its infancy. It was recognized by the burned airmen that much of the surgery was experimental.

“It’s the world’s most exclusive club that no one wants to belong to because your admission is an air crash and the results of that,” Said retired dentist Lionel Hastings, who now lives in Regina. “There were three types of Guinea Pigs. There were fried, mashed, and hash browned. I was primarily mashed,” said Hastings, a former RCAF Navigator, aged 21 in 1944. He suffered 32 facial fractures, three spinal fractures, as well as arm and leg fractures, when his plane crashed in Belgium in 1944

Hastings, now 80, is one of 650 Allied service men world wide – 175 of them Canadians – who joined the club as a way of helping them deal with their injuries. In Canada 45 still survive. Hastings spent seven months in hospital, three of those in East Grinstead’s Queen Victoria Hospital.

The Guinea Pig Club was formed in 1941 by patients of Sir Archibald MacIndoe, the pioneering New Zealand plastic surgeon who worked on them at the hospital. Dr. Ross worked as senior Canadian plastic surgeon. Hastings credits the two men with more than just skill in the operating theatre. “They treated you with the idea that you were there for one reason and that was to get better so that you could carry on with your life--,” he said.

The Club was duly formed with a committee and Dr. McIndoe as its President. The Secretary was a pilot with badly burned fingers, which meant he was excused from writing many letters. The treasurer was a member whose legs were burned, this insured he could not abscond with the funds! Members of the Guinea Pigs qualified by being a member of an aircrew and who received at least one operation at the hospital. Scientists, Doctors and Surgeons were honorary members.

Later, as the bombing intensified against the industrial heart of Germany, the emphasis switched from burned fighter pilots to burned bomber crews. In time these patients represented 80% of the total. There were 649 Guinea Pigs at the end of the war. The majority were British (65-70%). Other nationalities include Canadian (27%), Australian (8%), New Zealand (8%)

Ex-Air Gunners: Short Bursts

[Kyt]

Shot Down In Flames by Geoffrey Page (a Guinea Pig) and The Reconstruction of Warriors by Mayhew are both excellent books abou the Guinea Pig Club

As for the post-WW1 care of casualties, I've finally found my copy of The War Come Home (buried deep in a large pile of books) as I couldn't remember the name of the home that is still running:

The Royal Star and Garter Home

[Antipodean Andy]

Excellent reading guys.