Wwi: The Men Amongst Broken Faces (Les Gueules Cassées)

The French were the kickoff to recognize the unspeakable injuries that high explosives inwards the greatest amounts e'er used in addition to machine guns alongside the fastest rates of burn e'er experienced were causing to the heads in addition to faces of the troops.
The French also had the highest percent of wounded of all the major belligerents:

 Sorted yesteryear percent wounded of total Mobilized                           Dead %         Wounded %     Missing/PoW % French Republic                    16.36%          50.73%           6.39% Austria-Hungary           15.38%          46.41%          28.21% Russian Federation                    14.17%          41.25%          20.83% Germany                   16.12%          38.33%          10.48% Great Britain             10.20%          23.47%           2.15% 

 Sorted yesteryear number wounded                       Mobilized          Dead           Wounded       Missing/PoW Russian Federation                12,000,000       1,700,000       4,950,000       2,500,000 French Republic                 8,410,000       1,375,800       4,266,000         537,000 Germany               11,000,000       1,773,700       4,216,058       1,152,800 Austria-Hungary        7,800,000       1,200,000       3,620,000       2,200,000 Great Britain          8,904,467         908,371       2,090,212         191,652 Italy                  5,615,000         650,000         947,000         600,000

The hydraulic effects of explosions inwards mud made the awfulness fifty-fifty worse.

Combine the horror of the wounds alongside advances inwards medicine that kept the organism live where inwards before history the soldier would stimulate got died, in addition to the final result was tens of thousands of men who had to human face upward life without a face.
When nosotros verbalise of "the wounded" nosotros actually stimulate got no view of the reality.

Warning: What follows is really graphic.

Introduction

Smithsonian Magazine, February, 2007

Faces of War

Amid the horrors of World War I, a corps of artists brought promise to soldiers disfigured inwards the trenches

Wounded tommies facetiously called it "The Tin Noses Shop." Located inside the third London General Hospital, its proper mention was the "Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department"; either way, it represented ane of the many acts of desperate improvisation borne of the Great War, which had overwhelmed all conventional strategies for dealing alongside trauma to body, heed in addition to soul. On every front—political, economic, technological, social, spiritual—World War I was changing Europe forever, piece claiming the lives of 8 meg of her fighting men in addition to wounding 21 meg more.

The large-caliber guns of artillery warfare alongside their ability to atomize bodies into unrecoverable fragments in addition to the mangling, deadly fallout of shrapnel had made clear, at the war's outset, that mankind's military machine technology wildly outpaced its medical: "Every fracture inwards this nation of war is a huge opened upward wound," ane American physician reported, "with a non simply broken but shattered os at the bottom of it." The really nature of trench warfare, moreover, proved diabolically conducive to facial injuries: "[T]he...soldiers failed to empathize the menace of the machine gun," recalled Dr. Fred Albee, an American surgeon working inwards France. "They seemed to think they could popular their heads upward over a trench in addition to displace speedily plenty to dodge the hail of bullets."

Writing inwards the 1950s, Sir Harold Gillies, a pioneer inwards the fine art of facial reconstruction in addition to modern plastic surgery, recalled his nation of war service: "Unlike the pupil of today, who is weaned on pocket-sized scar excisions in addition to graduates to harelips, nosotros were all of a precipitous asked to attain one-half a face." Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 New Zealander yesteryear birth, Gillies was 32 in addition to working every bit a surgeon inwards London when the nation of war began, but he left presently after to serve inwards plain ambulances inwards Kingdom of Belgium in addition to France. In Paris, the chance to discover a celebrated facial surgeon at work, together alongside the plain sense that had revealed the shocking physical toll of this novel war, led to his decision to specialize inwards facial reconstruction. Plastic surgery, which aims to restore both part in addition to shape to deformities, was, at the war's outset, crudely practiced, alongside picayune existent attending given to aesthetics. Gillies, working alongside artists who created likenesses in addition to sculptures of what the men had looked similar before their injuries, strove to restore, every bit much every bit possible, a mutilated man's master face. Kathleen Scott, a noted sculptress in addition to the widow of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott of Antarctica fame, volunteered to assist Gillies, declaring alongside feature aplomb that the "men without noses are really beautiful, similar antique marbles." 

While pioneering move inwards pare grafting had been done inwards Federal Republic of Federal Republic of Germany in addition to the Soviet Union, it was Gillies who refined in addition to therefore mass-produced critical techniques, many of which are soundless of import to modern plastic surgery: on a unmarried twenty-four hours inwards early on July 1916, next the kickoff appointment of the Battle of the Somme—a twenty-four hours for which the London Times casualty listing covered non columns, but pages—Gillies in addition to his colleagues were sent to a greater extent than or less 2,000 patients. The clinically honest before-and-after photographs published yesteryear Gillies presently after the nation of war inwards his landmark Plastic Surgery of the Face expose how remarkably—at times almost unimaginably—successful he in addition to his squad could be; but the gallery of seamed in addition to shattered faces, alongside their brave patchwork of missing parts, also demonstrates the surgeons' limitations. It was for those soldiers—too disfigured to qualify for before-and-after documentation—that the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department had been established.

"My move begins where the move of the surgeon is completed," said Francis Derwent Wood, the program's founder. Born inwards England's Lake District inwards 1871, of an American manly mortal raise in addition to British mother, Wood had been educated inwards Switzerland in addition to Germany, every bit good every bit England. Following his family's provide to England, he trained at diverse fine art institutes, cultivating a talent for sculpture he had exhibited every bit a youth. Too former for active duty when nation of war broke out, he had enlisted, at historic menses 44, every bit a individual inwards the Royal Army Medical Corps. Upon existence assigned every bit an orderly to the third London General Hospital, he at kickoff performed the green "errand-boy-housewife" chores. Eventually, however, he took upon himself the chore of devising sophisticated splints for patients, in addition to the realization that his abilities every bit an creative mortal could live medically useful inspired him to build masks for the irreparably facially disfigured. His novel metallic element masks, lightweight in addition to to a greater extent than permanent than the safe prosthetics previously issued, were custom designed to behaviour the prewar portrait of each wearer. Within the surgical in addition to convalescent wards, it was grimly accepted that facial disfigurement was the most traumatic of the multitude of horrific damages the nation of war inflicted. "Always expect a human similar a shot inwards the face," ane resolute nun told her nurses. "Remember he's watching your human face upward to meet how you're going to react."

Wood established his mask-making unit of measurement inwards March 1916, in addition to yesteryear June 1917, his move had warranted an article inwards The Lancet, the British medical journal. "I displace yesteryear agency of the science I laissez passer on to possess every bit a sculptor to brand a man's human face upward every bit close every bit possible to what it looked similar before he was wounded," Wood wrote. "My cases are by in addition to large extreme cases that plastic surgical physical care for has, perforce, had to abandon; but, every bit inwards plastic surgery, the psychological final result is the same. The patient acquires his former self-respect, self assurance, self-reliance,...takes ane time again to a pride inwards his personal appearance. His presence is no longer a source of melancholy to himself nor of sadness to his relatives in addition to friends."

Toward the terminate of 1917, Wood's move was brought to the attending of a Boston-based American sculptor, inevitably described inwards articles nearly her every bit a "socialite." Born inwards Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Anna Coleman Watts had been educated inwards Paris in addition to Rome, where she began her sculptural studies. In 1905, at the historic menses of 26, she had married Maynard Ladd, a physician inwards Boston, in addition to it was hither that she continued her work. Her sculptural subjects were mostly decorative fountains—nymphs abounding, sprites dancing—as good every bit portrait busts that, yesteryear today's tastes, appear characterless in addition to bland: vaguely generic portraits of vaguely generic faces. The possibility of furthering the move yesteryear making masks for wounded soldiers inwards French Republic mightiness non stimulate got been broached to Ladd but for the fact that her married adult man had been appointed to direct the Children's Bureau of the American Red Cross inwards Toul in addition to serve every bit its medical adviser inwards the unsafe French advance zones....MORE

The Wounded
This is what the surgeons were dealing with:

Claire GRUBE : spider web log histoire les gueules cassées

Where attain yous start?

And this

The doctors could maintain yous live but therefore what?
And this

 

 OUP: The Rhetoric of Disfigurement inwards First World War Britain 

The Artists
This is where the sculptors stepped inwards after the surgeons had done the best they could.
People similar Wood in addition to Ladd made masks for the disfigured who, ane way or to a greater extent than or less other were going to live turned dorsum into civilian society.

The artistry was amazing

Two soldiers play cards piece wearing Ladd’s handiwork.

The Surgeons
Led yesteryear Dr. Gillies, Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, London became the world's leading establishment for the question in addition to exercise of plastic in addition to reconstructive surgery. The move they did is is deserving of much to a greater extent than infinite than nosotros tin give notice give it here, it would require an entire website of its own.

Fortunately in that location is one:

The Gillies Archives from Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup

Finally, if whatever expert has come upward of all this, it is the advances inwards medicine/surgery:

National Geographic 

That's Katie Stubblefield's novel human face upward exactly before the transplant surgery
Good for her but it seems an awfully high cost was paid to larn us to this point.