How the Soldiers Who Met Harold Gillies Recovered

A history of pioneering first world war plastic surgeon Harold Gillies gives due weight to the stories of the men he treated, The Guardian’s Wendy Moore writes in a review of a new book about the New Zealander by Lindsey Fitzharris called, The Facemaker.

“Gillies, a New Zealand-born surgeon who trained in Britain, helped thousands of men to literally face the world again. His work in the unit he created at the Queen’s Hospital, Sidcup, has been overshadowed by the more familiar story of his cousin, Archibald McIndoe, who rebuilt the burnt faces of pilots in his ‘Guinea Pig Club’ in the second world war. Yet it was Gillies, an extraordinarily compassionate man as well as a skilled surgeon, who really transformed the speciality of plastic surgery,” Moore writes.

“In her engrossing book, Lindsey Fitzharris not only tells the story of Gillies’s achievements, she immerses us in the world of the men he helped, following them from the carnage of the trenches to the wards where they made long and painful recoveries.”

Original article by Wendy Moore, The Guardian, June 3, 2022.