University Health Network - Academy of Medicine Collection
Category
Archival
Military Medicine
Nursing
Commemorative and Communication Artifacts
Classification
Archival, Photograph
Archival, Military
Military Medicine
Nursing
Commemorative and Communication Artifacts
Accession Number
002050436
Description
Promotional photograph for military nursing and plastic surgery during World War II depicting nursing sister in uniform with patient in military uniform walking beyond the steps of Rooksdown House, with large brick building in background; man is using crutches and shows a heavily bandaged right foo…
Promotional photograph for military nursing and plastic surgery during World War II depicting nursing sister in uniform with patient in military uniform walking beyond the steps of Rooksdown House, with large brick building in background; man is using crutches and shows a heavily bandaged right foot. This person may be the first attempt by Sir Harold Gillies to provide replacement toes devised from a lump of flesh that had been taken from somewhere else on his body to be attached to the end of the foot to act as a counter-balance; four photos from this photo opportunity, 020.050.434-.437.
Number Of Parts
1
Provenance
Acquired from the Academy of Medicine; originally from the Estate of Dr. Stuart Gordon. Belongs with other loose photographs from Dr. Gordon's photograph album for 'Canadian Medical Corps at Surgical Station in France, World War II Surgical Ward Photographs' 002.050.423.
This photo is from #1 Plastic & Jaw Surgery Unit Rooksdown House Basingstoke, Hampshire England. Perhaps the most significant improvements in the history of plastic surgery occurred in the last century, where several plastic surgery techniques were introduced during the world wars. Pioneering skin grafting techniques such as the ‘tubed pedicled graft’, were developed during World War I and refined by leading plastic surgeons Archibald McIndoe and Harold Gilles who used the techniques to treat severe facial burns.
These staged procedures differed from earlier plastic surgery because they relied on the growth and development of a blood supply from the recipient bed into the grafted tissue over many weeks or months.
Dr. Gordon graduated from the University of Toronto in 1926. After serving in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps in World War II, he returned to Toronto to become the Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Toronto General Hospital and the first head of the University of Toronto training program in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.