PLASTIC SURGEON'S WORK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22498, 16 February 1935, Page 11

PLASTIC SURGEON'S WORK

TRIBUTE TO SIR H. D. GILLIES (From Uui: Own C,‘okkesi»oni)kn'i.i LONDON, January 19. A marvel of modern surgery, described by counsel as the “ finest piece of work that Sir Harold Gillies, the plastic surfeon, had ever done, was described to Ir Justice Humphreys at Bucks Assizes. Cynthia Wilson, a 12-year-old girl, was so terribly injured about the face that doctors and nurses prayed that she might die. She is now of normal appearance. Mr A. Ward {for the girl) said that her head was battered, her face broken open, and her jaws broken when a mocor car collided with her bicycle last April. “ It is one of the finest pieces of work, I think, that Sir Harold Gillies has ever done,” added counsel. “He has built up this child’s face and the dentist has built up the mouth. It has been very expensive treatment, and the father has incurred or must incur altogether a sum of £650.” The defendants were Messrs W. Lamb and Co., of Slough. A settlement of £IOOO and taxed costs was approved by the judge. A PIONEER IN FACIAL SURGERY. Sir Harold Gillies, formerly of New Zealand, was knighted in 1930 in recognition of his wonderful work for disfigured ex-servicemen. Peterborough (Daily Telegraph) remarks:—The tribute ,paid in the course of a lawsuit to the work of Sir Harold Gillies, the famous plastic surgeon, will not surprise any who have been his patients. The achievements of the young New Zealand doctor during the war in supplying incredibly mutilated soldiers with new limbs and faces were something more than remarkable. His collection of casts of facial war wounds would be a grim one if he did not also show one photographs of the same faces after they had been successfully treated. HIGH TEES. Sir Harold is tall and genial and has a highly developed gift of invention. This shows itself not only in the surgery, but on the golf course. An old golfing Blue, he at one time indulged in the most bizarre of tees. One was a piece of rubber tubing nine inches high. Another was a ginger beer bottle. Ultimately, however, he returned to a more conventional type of tee on the representation of his friends.