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Book review: The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris
Plastic surgery was pioneered on those injured in World War I. JAN WOOLF reads an account of how this technology emerged, written with grace and love
The Facemaker
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The Facemaker, by Lindsey Fitzharris
Allen Lane, £20
OFTEN after war, comes technical advance for peacetime: but afterwards, not before, as all funded effort is in the technology of killing.
World War II brought us radar and emotional attachment theory. World War I — that rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died — plastic surgery, for when returning with a lost limb could make you a hero, a lost face made you a monster.
“The science of healing stood baffled before the science of destroying.” But one surgeon met the challenge, Harold Gilles, known as the grandfather of plastic surgery for his pioneering work in reconstructing the faces of soldiers that had had them torn away by the killing machinery.
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