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Harold Gillies
The Father of Modern Plastic Surgery
In 2024, Our Health Journeys partnered with Saint Kentigern College in Auckland and challenged a number of students to conduct research into an aspect of the medical history of Aotearoa New Zealand. The students, ranging from Years 8-13, produced their research in written, oral, or video format and the top projects were chosen for publication to Our Health Journeys. A new project will be published weekly until October.
Harold Gillies - The Father of Modern Plastic Surgery
Crimson and gold shards showered the sky as horrifying screams pierced through the air. Soldiers’ faces disfigured, battered, bruised beyond recognition; their identities forever lost to gruesome injuries. Such was the experience of Sir Harold Gillies, a New-Zealand otolaryngologist, whose encounter with the injuries of soldiers in the First World War would ultimately lead to his creation of modern plastic surgery.
Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on the 17th of June 1882, Gillies first began his medical journey studying medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1910, he acquired a position as an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist for Sir Milsom Rees’ medical practice. There, he furthered his knowledge in the field until the outbreak of the war in 1914.
Determined to serve his country, Gillies put his skills to use and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. On the battlefield, he worked as a medical minder to French American dentist Valadier, and eager after watching Valadier experimenting with nascent skin graft techniques, left for Paris to meet renowned oral surgeon Hippolyte Morestin. In Paris, he witnessed several techniques being used, most importantly, covering a removed tumour with jaw skin. Gillies returned to England content with his newfound knowledge, and persuaded chief surgeon William Arbuthnot-Lane that a facial injury ward should be established for injured soldiers. Not long after, he and his colleagues had developed several plastic surgery techniques over the course of more than 11,000 operations. All of this eventually gave birth to what we know today as modern plastic surgery.
Perhaps the most important discovery Gillies made during his experience on the battlefield was the ‘tubed pedicle’. The technique involved using a flap of skin from the chest or forehead that was swung into place over the face. The flap remained attached but was stitched into a tube. This kept vital arteries and veins intact while doctors replaced the dead skin. The transplant took up to three weeks, during which the flap prevented infection, removed discomfort, and was easy to move around safely. As antibiotics didn’t exist back then, this discovery was a breakthrough; it allowed Gillies and many other doctors to safely reconstruct the faces of many soldiers.
Overall, Gillies’ experience in the First World War served as a womb for what we know today as modern plastic surgery. With a scalpel and intuition, not only did he change the lives of numerous soldiers but the lives of millions. A truly admirable New Zealander.
