Real metal army of two masks12/18/2023 ![]() Instead, it caused hands to contract and tissue to die some of McIndoe's initial patients spent terrible moments having these chemical shells peeled off them. The idea was that the burn would heal under the shell. "It's a chemical that you painted on, and it formed a gray shell," Mayhew says. One of McIndoe's main discoveries was that the standard treatment for minor burns could be dangerous on hands and faces, causing infection, terrible scarring and even blindness. But before he could get to skin grafts, he had to stabilize his patients.Īdvances in shock treatment in the late 1930s - keeping the body hydrated and nourished through plasma and protein infusions - got McIndoe's patients past the first critical 24 hours. Gillies' advances in skin-grafting would help McIndoe rebuild the faces of his RAF patients. McIndoe was a cousin of Gillies and trained with him during peacetime. " learn very quickly what works and what doesn't." "It's really about having a lot of patients," says Mayhew. Bone- and skin-grafting also became real disciplines. So the doctors figured out how to insert a tube down the throat. The mouth was typically the site of the injury. The usual rubber mask over the mouth wouldn't work. The first task was to find a way to anesthetize the patients. ![]() He and a band of dentists began to pioneer the first systematic techniques for dealing with such injuries. The location of the wounds meant most of the patients were sent to ear, nose, and throat doctors like New Zealander Harold Gillies. "They were worried it would have put doctors off from going to the Front." "The results were so awful, they decided not to show the book to anyone," says Mayhew. "People put their faces up over the trenches and they got shot," Mayhew explains.Īllied doctors had turned to a textbook on facial injuries from the American Civil War for ideas. No previous war had relied on trench warfare to the same extent. The first breakthroughs in plastic surgery for facial injuries actually dates back to World War I. Between 19, McIndoe has, in all, 5,000 burn patients and 600 total facial reconstructions." "As a surgeon in peacetime, you see one or two serious burns a year. "That's the difference between war and peace," says Mahew, author of the book, The Reconstruction of Warriors. In that instance, major advances can be made in medical treatments. Treatment was typically to give morphine, and watch the patients slip away.īut one positive side effect of war can be found in the sheer number of patients with a certain type of injury. Their bodies shut down from dehydration, unable to handle the shock of losing massive amounts of blood and protein at the burn sites. ![]() The pilots' wounds were dubbed "Airman's burn." Before World War II, most patients with severe burns - typically children and the elderly scalded by boiling water or falling into cooking fires - died within 24 hours. These are handsome, brave men who are defending the country, and the whole image of them is catastrophic." "No one has ever seen anything like this. "These are the very elite of the British military, and they are in the most appalling state," says Emily Mayhew, a historian at Imperial College London who researches the intertwined history of plastic surgery and war. The pilots had not been expected to survive. Within weeks of the start of the Battle of Britain in 1940, burned pilots were transferred to surgeon Archibald McIndoe at his East Grinstead hospital - one of only four plastic surgeons in Britain. As doctors struggled to care for the men, they made major advances in treatment for burn victims - in the medical arena and in the psychological arena, as well. Although they were able to parachute out, the skin on their hands and faces was burned off. When their planes crashed, they were bathed in the short-lived fire of aircraft fuel. That's how badly burned Royal Air Force pilots from World War II referred to themselves. Soldiers recovering from burns suffered in Iraq owe a debt to the members of the Guinea Pig Club. Queen Victoria Hospital Foundation Trust Museum Bill Foxley (from left), British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Claude Allen and Ricky Rix appeared together in August 1946.
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