The Plastic Surgery Revolution
From: MentalFloss.com
Carleton Burgan of Maryland was in terrible shape. The 20-year-old private had survived pneumonia, but the mercury pills he took as a treatment led to gangrene, which quickly spread from his mouth to his eye and led to the removal of his right cheekbone. He was willing to try anything. In a pioneering series of operations in 1862, a surgeon from City Hospital in New York used dental and facial fixtures to fill in the missing bone until Burgan’s face regained its shape.
The doctor was Gurdon Buck, now considered the father of modern plastic surgery. During the war, he and other Union surgeons completed 32 revolutionary “plastic operations” on disfigured soldiers. Buck was the first to photograph the progress of his repairs and the first to make gradual changes over several operations. He also pioneered the use of tiny sutures to minimize scarring.
To some, it seemed pretty wacky, like sci-fi for the 19th century. An Illinois newspaper enthusiastically and erroneously described the new treatments: “Such is the progress of the medical department in these parts that half of a man’s face demolished by a ball or piece of shell is replaced by a cork face!”
2 comments:
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