Dr. Gurdon Buck: Plastic Surgery Pioneer

Excerpted from: wikipedia.com

Born: 4 May 1807, New York City, New York State
Died : March 6, 1877, New York City, New York State
Residence: United States of America
Nationality :United States of America
Fields Surgeon
Institutions: New York Hospital
Alma mater: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Known for: Plastic Surgery pioneer and incorporation of pre and post-operative photography

Gurdon Buck was a pioneer military plastic surgeon during the Civil War. He's known for being the first doctor to incorporate pre and post-operative photographs into his publications. Buck's fascia and Buck's extension are both named after him.

Buck graduated from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1830 and interned at New York Hospital. He also studied in Paris, Berlin and Vienna. He was appointed visiting surgeon to the New York Hospital in 1837 which he held the rest of his life. He was also appointed to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.

In 1845, Buck took the first clinical photograph and used an engraving of it in "The Knee Joint Anchylosed at a Right Angle." This was the first known published illustration of a medical photograph.

Dr. Buck was a founding fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine in 1847.

He wrote "Contributions to Reparative Surgery" (New York, 1876) which is the first American plastic surgery textbook.

He is buried in the New York Marble Cemetery.

Read More

The First Civil War Photographs of Soldiers with Facial Wounds.

Source: New York University Medical Center, New York, USA.

Abstract

During the Civil War, for the first time in medical history, a large number of excellent photographs were taken of many wounded Union and (to a lesser degree) Confederate soldiers by photographers assigned by their doctors or surgeons, or by photographers employed by the Army Medical Museum. The majority of these photographs demonstrating facial, head, and neck wounds have not been published since the Civil War, except for a few minor exceptions. The actual art of printing photographs in medical journals, daily newspapers, and magazines did not even begin until the early 1880s--almost two decades after the Civil War [24]. Any photographs that could be found in certain rare medical and surgical books during and immediately after the War were actually pasted into those books by their printers.

Read More

Dr. Gurden Buck, Plastic Surgery Pioneer

From: Biblioserver.com

Gurdon Buck, New York surgeon, was born in Fulton Street, New York on the fourth of May, 1807, a son of Gurdoi* Buck, a New York merchant, and Susannah Manwaring Buck of Connecticut, both grandchildren of Gov. Gurdon Saltonstall of Connecticut. Dr. Buck went to Nelson Classical School and finally determined to study medicine. With this in view he studied under Dr. Thomas Cock and in 1830 received his M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the city of New York. After passing the regular term on the medical side of the New York Hospital he went to Europe and continued his studies in the hospitals of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna for a period of about two years and a half. In 1836 he made a second visit to Europe, and in Geneva, Switzerland, married Henrietta E. Wolff, of that city. In 1837 he was appointed visiting surgeon to the New York Hospital and held that position up to the day he died He was also appointed visiting surgeon to St Luke's Hospital and the Presbyterian Hospital at the time of the organization of those institutions, and was visiting surgeon to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, from l&S?' to 1862. He was a fellow of the Academy of Medicine from its organization, and served as its vice-president for one term; a member of the New York Pathological Society, serving one term as president, and member of the state and county medical societies.

For some years his health had slowly been failing, and grave symptoms appeared, referred to kidney trouble. Finally the symptoms of uremic poisoning became moremarked, until he sank into coma, in whichstate he quietly passed away on March 6, 1877.

As a surgeon, Dr. Buck was remarkable for boldness in operating, and thoroughness of detail in after-treatment. His patient study of his cases was one of his peculiar traits. He was particularly attentive to cases of fractures and not infrequently devoted the greater part of the day to these cases in the wards of the New York Hospital. As a result of such painstaking care he was enabled to revolutionize the prevailing system of treatment. The improvements which he made in the then existing apparatus are matters of surgical history'. His method of treating fractures of the thigh by the weight and pulley was at once recognized by surgeons throughout the civilized world as the establishment of an original principle of great value and to this day it is known as 'Buck's Extension.'

His investigations with regard to the pelvic fasciae are to be found in the first volume of the 'Transactions of the American Medical Association.'

His joint surgery was especially noteworthy in a preantiseptic era; he excised the elbow joint (New York Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1841), and the knee joint (American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1845). He was successful in treating edema of the glottis, wrote much about abscesses in the right iliac fossa but never learned their cause, and was deeply interested in rhinoplastic, stomatoplastic and other reparative operations, publishing a work of some 237 pages in 1876.

As a man Dr. Buck was noted for his sterling integrity of character, his high sense of professional honor, his consistent Christianity, his charity to the poor, and his quiet devotion to his family. He left a widow and five children, three sons and two daughters. Two of the sons became physicians.

Read More

Facial Reconstruction

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!”

Read More