Harold Gillies

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Sir Harold Delf Gillies (born June 17, 1882 in Dunedin , † September 10, 1960 in London ) was a British otolaryngologist and surgeon born in New Zealand . He made a name for himself as the "father of plastic surgery" due to his pioneering work with facial reconstruction for injured soldiers during the First World War .

Life

Childhood and youth

Harold Delf Gillies was born the youngest of eight children to Robert Gillies and Emily Street. His father was a land surveyor and parliamentarian, and his mother was the niece of the famous poet Edward Lear . Robert Gillies died in 1886, just before Harold's fourth birthday. Harold spent his early school days in New Zealand at the Wanganui Collegiate School . From 1900 he studied medicine at Gonville and Caius College of the University of Cambridge in England. In 1904 he took part in the Boat Race . After his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, he became a member (“Fellow”) of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1910 as an ENT specialist.

First World War

When war broke out in 1914, Harold joined the Red Cross as a surgeon and was sent to Hoogstadt, Belgium . While working with the Red Cross, Harold was assigned to oversee the French surgeon Charles Auguste Valadier , who (despite the fact that he was unskilled as a surgeon) had established a medical department for jaw injuries in Wimereux . Valadier used new tissue and bone chips to shape or reconstruct jaws. Gillies observed many surgeries and noted that new types of gunshot wounds would necessitate new surgical methods.

In June 1915, Gillies went on vacation to Paris to meet the plastic surgeon Hippolyte Morestin . He was allowed to watch a cancer operation in which Morestin rolled a piece of skin over the wound under his jaw to close the wound. Although this method had been used in India for hundreds of years, Gillies had never seen it before. He was inspired to work in plastic surgery and applied for the medical service. In January 1916, he joined the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot , Hampshire - he was the first British plastic surgeon.

Due to the growing number of patients with facial injuries, the department moved to Queen's Hospital in Sidcup in August 1917 . Gillies and his colleagues developed new methods of plastic surgery between 1917 and 1918, specifically a method that employs a tubular stem to improve the blood supply to the graft. This technique made the transplant process easier . Gillies also developed a method for restoring rolled-in eyelids.

For his achievements during the First World War, he was in 1930 for Knight Bachelor beaten.

Later medical works

After the First World War, Gillies continued to work in Sidcup at Queen's Hospital and also in a private practice. His patients were not only soldiers but also civilians (including celebrities) who wanted to correct various blemishes. In 1919 he got a job as an assistant at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. With the help of Bedford Russell, a colleague at St. Bartholomew's, and his former patient and secretary Robert Seymour, Gillies gathered his medical records and notes to write a study on facial reconstruction. Plastic Surgery of the Face was published in 1920. Further books were published in 1935 and 1957.

Gillies trained many surgeons, including his cousin Archibald McIndoe and Rainsford Mowlem . In 1938, Gillies and McIndoe published a specialist article on breast plastic methods . He also helped set up various plastic surgery departments in England.

During World War II, Gillies was a board certified physician with the UK Department of Health, the British Air Force and the Admiralty. After the war, he performed the first gender reassignment operations on Michael Dillon and Roberta Cowell - his method for doing this became the medical model for 40 years.

Private life

In addition to his medical work, Gillies was also a successful athlete - he played golf and rowing during his studies and later in life he represented England in golf. He also had a talent for painting; In 1948 an exhibition of his paintings took place in London.

In 1911 he married Kathleen Margaret Jackson, a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. They had four children, the youngest son Michael Thomas Gillies became a medical entomologist.

After the death of his wife Kathleen on May 14, 1957, he married his assistant, Marjorie Ethel Clayton, on November 5, 1957. Gillies died of cerebral thrombosis in London on September 10, 1960, at the age of 78.

literature

  • Gillies, H. D, W. Kelsey Fry, and R Wade. 1920. Plastic Surgery Of The Face. 1st ed. London: H. Frowde.
  • Gillies, Harold Delf. 1935. The Development And Scope Of Plastic Surgery ... 1st ed. Chicago: Northwestern University.
  • Gillies, Harold, Ivan Magill, David Ralph Millard, and Jerome Pierce Webster. 1957. The Principles And Art Of Plastic Surgery. 1st ed.Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
  • Meikle, Murray C. 2013. Reconstructing Faces. 1st ed. Dunedin: Otago University Press.
  • Pound, Reginald. 1964. Gillies, Surgeon Extraordinary; A biography. 1st ed. London: Joseph.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Ernest O'Neil Yeo - One of the first people to undergo Plastic Surgery. The Yeo Society, August 28, 2008, accessed September 30, 2014 .
  2. ^ Pound, 22-23.
  3. ↑ Pound, Jan.
  4. ↑ a b biography of Harold Gillies. NZEdge, accessed September 30, 2014 .
  5. ^ Pound, 70.
  6. ↑ Gillies, H. D, W. Kelsey Fry, and R Wade. 1920. Plastic Surgery Of The Face. 1st ed. London: H. Frowde.
personal data
SURNAME Gillies, Harold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gillies, Harold Delf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British otolaryngologist and surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Dunedin
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1960
Place of death London