Gillies of the day

making this blog where I'll try to post one of Harold Gillies patients daily with a little description of what happened to them and what he did to help them.

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For day #8, I'd like to do William Vicarage. He was another severely burned man at Jutland. This is a particularly revolutionary case because it he was the first patient to receive the Tubed Pedical, which if you don't know, was a skin graft invented by Harold Gillies. It's similar to the traditional flap, but it's stitched into a tube shape before being attached to the sight. This increases blood flow and diminishes the risk of infection. In Vicarages case, two V like grafts were taken from his chest and placed onto his cheeks, as seen in the first picture. The poor man had no lips or eyelids, and it took many surgeries and grafts to get him functional again, but as you can see In the last picture with him as an old man, he was infact returned to his former self, and lived a long and happy life.

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Day #7, Private Harold page, who was extensively wounded in his nose, cheek, and upper jaw. Gillies had to extensively repair faciel structure. It took 19 surgeries to be able to return his face to a functioning level. A very interesting example this case has is the demonstration of skin grafts around the eye socket to create completely new eyelids to make the eyes even again. This case is a very good example of the new eye structure functioning with a prothstetic eye. This case also shows a very clean finished nose graff, which has very minimal scarring and a full strong bridge. The final result photographed are very good, and with time this man would have healed more, and returned to an even better standpoint, as his scars would fade, and his face would become more natural and smooth looking.

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Now that I've posted all my make ups, and have done a good handful of posts, I was wondering if anyone viewing could give me feedback.

Do you prefer if I do very short little descriptions like on day one? Or my more detailed and longer posts? I want people to actually enjoy my posts, and not find it a chore to read about these guys. I can post more pictures, and write less, or continue how im doing it. I'll apperciate any feedback you guys have. Thank you.

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For the last make up, 4/4 day #6, today, I'd like to do something colorful for celebration 🥳 . The portrait above is by the talented artist and surgeon Henry Tonks, who worked with Gillies on his team at Aldershot hospital, and later Queens hospital. Often his illustrations show much more detail and depth to the wound than the photos, and I figured a colored image would be a nice break from my constant black and white examples. This is case #5, which, i have also found difficult to name. Gillies himself doesn't name the patients, and i have to find other sources that reveal such information, which can sometimes be very difficult. I've seen many photographs of this man captioned "Deeks file" and i am unsure if his name is Deeks, and these photos are from his patient file, or if the photographer himself is named Deeks and it's crediting his work. Because of this we will call him D. He was hit by a large piece of shell that shattered his mandible and ripped apart his cheek. After he healed, Gillies's applied a chin splint. In his 2nd operation they removed scar tissue and closed his cheek. In multiple operations he had to remove more and more scar tissue, and repairing and remaking incisions. It was worth it though, as the final product is almost a perfect face. He has very little scarring, and a functional mouth and jaw. The final photo comes after the portrait Im using as example, but they are very similar. One of his most successful end results I've ever seen

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Make up 3/4. I couldn't find his case number, but for the make up of day #5 we're doing Rifleman Moss, which I'm unsure if that's his real name, but Moss is the only name I can ever fined attached to his face, even in Gillies's own notes for patient confidentiality he just writes "Rifleman M-" so this is the best i can do. He is a very interesting case. He lost both of his eyes, most of his nose, and his upper jaw from a gunshot wound. Gillies's did several surgeries repairing his nasal structure, and his upper jaw. Unfortunately I couldn't find a digital copy of this photo, but he has a photograph of the internal structure of his prothstetic which greatly filled out his cheek and nose, making his proportions much more even and traditional to a undamaged face. Another interesting thing about Him is the outside faciel prothstetic mask, which highlights the early years of Anaplastology, or if you're from the UK, Maxillofacial prosthodontics. During those days they were used to cover disfigurement from the public eye, for instance in this case, poor moss had lost both his eyes, and his prothstetic covered that, with dark tinted glasses so people wouldn't see his disability, or at least wouldn't notice as easily. It's a sad, but very technically impressive case.

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Make up 2/4, Day #4. Case #508. Sydney Beldam, who was injured at the Battle of Passchendale. The poor man was left on the battlefield for 3 days before being rescued, then he fell victim to hasty surgeons on the front who sewed his wound up without any concern for the lost tissue. He suffered from complete loss of his upper lip, and lower part of his nose bridge. When he arrived at Gillies's practice, his face had healed in a stretched and unatatrural way, due to the fact he had healed with much less tissue than he had originally had. Gillies had to undo all of the healing and work the previous doctors had done. Then he had to completely reconstruct a new right side of his cheek, lip, and nose. He used a skin graft from his forehead to his nose, creating a Tubed pedicle. He had to create flaps from his chin to replace his upper lip, and had to create multiple relief flaps to reduce tension in the right side of his face. While the photos look simple compared to other cases, it took him years to finish rebuilding Beldams face. The photo of the healed condition is not the finished product, but it Is his final photo in his book. I've never found a photo of Beldams end result, but I'd assume he probably would releave some of the tension in his left eyebrow and maybe add more hard tissue to the bridge of the nose. This is still a very impressive and aesthetically pleasing result as he is in the photo.

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My apologies for starting a blog and then instantly going missing. This is make up 1/4 of days I missed. For what would have been day #3 I'm doing case #525, James Bell. Gillies doesn't mention how or where he was injured in his notes, just that he was transferred to Queens hospital after receiving care from Augste Charles Valadier at a base hospital in France. He had a complete loss of upper lip, probably from a serious shapnel wound. Gillies removed the scar tissue around his nose and upper lip, allowing his mucus membranes and nostrils and nose to be returned to its natural resting state. He added prothstetics to replace the hard tissue in his nose and lip. He then had a six flap restorative process to reconstruct his lip. In the end Bell had a very natural and successful finished result.

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I apologize for the past 2 days being nothing, I got dental surgery and have been high out of my mind. I will make up the 3 missing days 👍

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For day #2, im doing case #364, a sailor named Walter Yeo. He was wounded at the Battle of Jutland. After receiving severe burns to his face, he had to wait another year to receive reconstructive surgery from Gillies. Unfortunately, even after having surgery to repair his skin, he still had completely lost his eyelids. Yeo is one of Gillies's most famous examples of using his technique, the Tubed Pedicle, which is a skin flap, skin graft technique Gillies invented to reduce infections while replacing lost tissue. He took skin from Yeo's neck and chest to replace his eyelids. This allowed him to blink properly and live a relatively comfortable life. After the photos I've selected highlighting his skin graft, he was also given aesthetic surgery and his looks significantly improved before he was discharged.

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For day #1 I'd like to start with one of my favorite patients in his book Plastic Surgery Of The Face. Case #14 Private Walter Ashworth. In the battle of the Somme, Ashworth received a very extensive cheek wound. Gillies used existing tissue to create a cheek. To create an evenly sized face, he sacrificed lip length. This case is a also great example for early dental prothstetics used to encourage bone growth and early cheek reconstruction.

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I'm making this blog for my own enjoyment. Harold Gillies's work is something I find very interesting, and I want to make a little collection of photos for myself and anyone else interested. I'm not sure how long I will do this, or how many patients I'll be able to find, but this is something I think will be fun.