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The Facemaker
A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I
The Facemaker recounts how surgeon Harold Gillies and an interdisciplinary medical team confronted the devastating facial wounds of the First World War. Modern artillery and trench combat produced injuries that existing surgical practice was poorly equipped to treat, leaving survivors with impaired breathing, eating, speech, and vision as well as severe social isolation. Lindsey Fitzharris follows Gillies from wartime service to his leadership of specialized treatment in Britain, where repeated operations, skin grafts, dental work, anesthesia, medical illustration, and careful experimentation helped establish modern reconstructive plastic surgery. The book is both a historical biography and a patient-centered account of medical innovation. It emphasizes that repairing a face was never solely a technical problem: the work also concerned identity, dignity, relationships, and the possibility of returning to public life. By placing surgical progress beside individual experiences of injury…