PLASTIC SURGERY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 38, 14 February 1930, Page 8

PLASTIC SURGERY

END OF WAR WORK

QUEEN'S HOSPITAL, SIDCUP

(From "The Postfc" Representative.) LONDON, 3rd January. Tlio Queen's Hospital, Sidcup, through which have passed since August, 1917, over 8000 men who "suffered facial injuries in the Great War, has been acquired by the London County Council at a e'ost of approximately £2,000. It is understood that the buildings, will be used as a general hospital for post-operative cases, for which provision vill have to be made' when the changes brought about by the Local Government become effective on Ist April. : Frognal House, Sidaip, the official name by which the hosgitd was known before Her Majesty consented "to it being called the Queen's Hospital [though the Services knew it as the 'Tact Hospital"), will be held in grateful remenbrance by the thousands of oflicers and men who, during the later years of the vva.', went there. Facial disfigurements, which at first were of an almost revolting grotesqueness, were, under the skilled hands;of Major H. D. Gillies (a quondam New Zealauder) and his associate surgeons left after treatment with features restored to a degree of faith- \ fulness to their original characteristics which was almost unianny. The hospital may rightly take eridit for the pioneer work of plastic surges in England. Experience has shewn that, in a large number of cases, twoj and even three and four, years are required to build up and restore the features of men who would otherwise have been permanently and horribly disfigured. Several patients treated at Sidcup have been tin the hospital for many years and have tndergone more than twenty operations, ant all have had their features permanently: restored. Mainly through the experienie gained at the Queen's Hospital, plastic surgery to-day can effect cures in cass which before the war would have been Considered hopeless instances of facial mullation. . "Here is the portrait of a man who was better looking after bis face had been mended. Major Gillils always said that he improved this man's looks." Sir Charles H. Kenderine, hon. see.bf the hospital, held out a set of portraits.; They showed one of the most successfu cases treated at the hospital. The plitograph was of a man whoso irregular futures had become almost unrecognisable. \ It was placed side by side with the portrait of him taken after his treatment vas complete, and showed a handsome Adfriis with a straight nose and regular featui's. There remain only |0 or 70 of such cases, and these have boon removed, at the request of the Miastry of Pensions, to Queen Mary's {Koelknpton) Hospital.