Rebuilding Faces: Rhinoplasty in History

The techniques used to rebuild the faces of the soldiers of the First World War by brilliant surgeon Harold Gilles had a long history dating back into the classical world when they were first recorded.

The techniques used to rebuild the faces of the soldiers of the First World War by brilliant surgeon Harold Gilles had a long history dating back into the classical world when they were first recorded. But by the eighteenth century, the techniques had fallen into obscurity in Europe until they were reintroduced by London surgeon and anatomist Joseph Constantine Carpue in 1814/15. Using the operation of rhinoplasty - the reconstruction of the lost nose - as the subject, this talk explores the history of the techniques eventually used by Harold Gilles, how the science behind human tissue transplantation and facial reconstruction was understood before the nineteenth century and how the operation of rhinoplasty came to fall into obscurity for such a long time.

Kirsty Chilton is the Assistant Curator of the Old Operating Theatre Museum and is interested in the history of the rise of medical science, anatomical teaching and surgery in the enlightenment and the work of the Resurrection Men of London.

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