Plastic Surgery

Baronio (Italian) experiment of free grafts from one site another on flank of sheep; American Civil War: more than 30 reconstructive procedures on eyelids, nose, cheek, lips & palate, using rotational flaps, oral prostheses and intermaxillary wiring; Gordon Buck, at NY Hospital during Civil War, reconstructed faces of patients with war injuries, incl. Carlton Burgan, who lost his nose, cheek, and orbital floor to an overdose of calomel (Crumley, 9-10); 1869: Reverdin (Paris) reports taking small piece of epidermis (“free skin graft”) to heal patient with traumatic skin loss of forearm (Bennett, 154); also develops, via experiments with subperiosteal [beneath dense fibrous membrane covering the surface of bones] resection, his eponymous cleft palate repair (Chambers & Ray, 473)  1874: Thiersch described the split-skin graft, taken with a razor, of the type currently used today” (Rowe, 344)  Rene Le Fort’s reports his research (via cadaver heads) on bony displacements and patterns of fracture following injuries to middle third of facial skeleton (345-46)