Harold Gillies
| Harold Delf Gillies | |
|---|---|
| Born |
17 June 1882 Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Died | 10 September 1960 (aged 78) The London Clinic, Marylebone, London |
| Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Otolaryngologist and pioneer plastic surgeon |
| Years active | c.1910-1960 |
| Known for | Plastic surgery, sex reassignment surgery |
| Spouse(s) | Kathleen Margaret Jackson (m. 1911) |
| Children | Michael Thomas Gillies (son) |
Sir Harold Delf Gillies (17 June 1882 – 10 September 1960) was a New Zealand-born, and later London-based, otolaryngologist who is widely considered the father of plastic surgery.
Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand. He studied medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, where despite a stiff elbow sustained sliding down the banisters at home as a child he was a rowing blue and participated at the 1904 Boat Race.
Following the outbreak of World War I he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. Initially posted to Wimereux, near Boulogne, he acted as medical minder to a French-American dentist, Valadier, who was not allowed to operate unsupervised but was attempting to develop jaw repair work. Gillies, eager after seeing Valadier experimenting with nascent skin graft techniques, then decided to leave for Paris, to meet the renowned surgeon Hippolyte Morestin. He saw him remove a tumour on a patient's face, and cover it with jaw skin taken from the patient. Gillies became enthusiastic about the work and on his return to England persuaded the army's chief surgeon, Arbuthnot-Lane, that a facial injury ward should be established at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot.
This rapidly proved inadequate and a new hospital devoted to facial repairs was developed at Sidcup. The Queen's Hospital opened in June 1917 and with its convalescent units provided over 1,000 beds. There Gillies and his colleagues developed many techniques of plastic surgery; more than 11,000 operations were performed on over 5,000 men (mostly soldiers with facial injuries, usually from gunshot wounds). The hospital, later to become Queen Mary's Hospital, was at Frognal House (the birthplace and property of Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney after whom Sydney, Australia was named).
...
Wikipedia