Comment #2

pumpi76 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:08:36 GMT

the same people that brought you Powerball...i'll like to know in 2220 what powerball is going to look like...

Comment #1

pumpi76 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:15:30 GMT

yet they can't see it...

Original Blog Entry: Pictures of first person to undergo plastic surgery

truesee — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:12:44 GMT

Pictures of first person to undergo plastic surgery released

The images of a wounded First World War soldier who became the first person to undergo plastic surgery have been released in an attempt to trace his family.

Daily Telegraph reporter

8:35AM BST 28 Aug 2009

Last updated BST 7 Nov 2009

Walter Yeo before (left) and after the skin graft surgery Photo: SWNS

The photographs show before, during and after pictures of the ground-breaking medical procedure carried out on sailor Walter Yeo.

Walter sustained terrible facial injuries including the loss of upper and lower eyelids while manning the guns aboard HMS Warspite in 1916.

In 1917 he was treated by Sir Harold Gillies - the first man to use skin grafts from undamaged areas on the body - and know as 'the father of plastic surgery'.

London-based Gillies opened a specialist ward for the treatment of the facially-wounded at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent.

Walter Yeo is thought to be the first patient to benefit from his newly-developed technique - a form of skin grafting called 'tubed pedical'.

The young sailor, of Plymouth, Devon, was given new eyelids with a 'mask' of skin grafted across his face and eyes.

Artist Paddy Hartley, 37, has previously used the images in an exhibition and is now attempting to track down Walter's family to find out what happened to him.

Paddy, of London, said: This tragedy catalysed the surgeon to transform the fledgling discipline of plastic surgery.

Walter Yeo last went for treatment at the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth 1938, but little else is known about him.

It would be interesting to know what happened to him in the years that followed.

I'm keen to find out how he and his family coped with the consequences of his injuries and subsequent surgery.

Walter was born in 1890 and after marrying wife Ada was severely injured during the battle of Jutland while manning guns.

Records show he was admitted to Sir Harry Gillies' care on August 8, 1917 - just two months after he opened his specialist hospital.

Documents show after the procedure Walter, a gunnery warrant officer, was 'improved, but still had severe disfigurement'.

Paddy said: The First World War was a war dominated by high explosives and heavy artillery.

Casualties treated by Sir Harold Gillies included an unprecedented number with horrific facial injuries.

Often unable to see, hear, speak, eat or drink, they struggled to re-assimilate back into civilian life.

Gillies is credited with developing new, untried techniques to treat the injuries created by this new kind of war, taking grafts from undamaged areas of flesh.

He used tubular 'pedicles' from the forehead, scalp, chest, neck or shoulders but retained a connection to allow blood flow.

Paddy has previously used similar images for an exhibition called Faces of Battle at the National Army Museum in London.

The Queen's Hospital, opened in June 1917, provided over 1,000 beds.

There Gillies and his colleagues developed many techniques of plastic surgery and carried more than 11,000 operations on over 5,000 men.

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