The Facemaker
A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I
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4.5 • 31 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller
Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize | Named a best book of the year by The Guardian
"Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile
Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery.
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: humankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care.
Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world’s first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of practitioners whose task was to rebuild what had been torn apart, to re-create what had been destroyed. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.
The Facemaker places Gillies’s ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Medical historian Fitzharris (The Butchering Art) paints a fascinating portrait of pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies and the soldiers whose faces he rebuilt during WWI. Drawing on firsthand accounts of trench warfare, Fitzharris shows how "Europe's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities," with facial wounds caused by shrapnel, burns, and infections far more common than in earlier conflicts. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, first supervised a unit dedicated to face and jaw wounds at the Cambridge Military Hospital, where he developed new techniques for skin grafts and rebuilding noses and eyelids, then established Queen's Hospital in Sidcup, England—the first hospital devoted to facial reconstruction. Fitzharris spotlights some of Gillies's collaborators, including French American dentist Auguste Charles Valadier, who early in the war converted his Rolls Royce into a mobile operating room, and artist Henry Tonks, a trained doctor who created pictorial records of patients before, during, and after their operations. She also details the hard-won physical and psychological recoveries of patients like Pvt. Percy Clare, who was mistakenly sent to the wrong hospital before undergoing several operations at Queen's Hospital. Meticulously researched and compulsively readable, this exceptional history showcases how compassion and innovation can help mitigate the terrible wounds of war.
Customer Reviews
Superb writer
Excellent … details without over whelming me, tied the current events of the day into the story of Gillies, the physicians, the medical personnel, and patients. A superb writer. Also, loved The Butchering Art. Which telling of medical history is next??