1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,960 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey, Brainstuff, 2 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:11,160 Speaker 1: luring Vogel bomb here. What could you do to help 3 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:15,160 Speaker 1: those fighting in a brutal war? At some point in history, 4 00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:18,920 Speaker 1: whole nations of individuals have had to ask themselves that question. 5 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:23,759 Speaker 1: They've rationed food and supplies, restructured their careers, nursed the 6 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:29,160 Speaker 1: wounded soldiers themselves, and monitored their own everyday speech. During 7 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,880 Speaker 1: World War One, an American woman named Anna Colwyn Ladd 8 00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,000 Speaker 1: used her skills as an artist to change the lives 9 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,400 Speaker 1: of men disfigured in the war. World War One was 10 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:44,080 Speaker 1: fought differently from any war that preceded it. The twentieth 11 00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:47,000 Speaker 1: century brought with it the fruits of the Industrial Revolution, 12 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:51,720 Speaker 1: which in this case included machine guns. Soldiers were often 13 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:55,560 Speaker 1: dodging a hailstorm of bullets rather than single shots, along 14 00:00:55,640 --> 00:01:00,360 Speaker 1: with artillery which involved lots and lots of shrapnel. Around 15 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:03,240 Speaker 1: twenty one million men were injured in the war, and 16 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,600 Speaker 1: some of them lost chins, noses, lips, and cheekbones, not 17 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:10,960 Speaker 1: surprising since trench warfare involved a lot of looking up 18 00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:12,560 Speaker 1: over the edge of the trench to see if the 19 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,840 Speaker 1: coast was clear. Facial reconstruction surgery was a brand new 20 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:20,040 Speaker 1: technology at this time, and though some of its practitioners 21 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:23,920 Speaker 1: had experience restoring or recreating faces on a small scale, 22 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:28,199 Speaker 1: these surgeons were suddenly presented with the then impossible task 23 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:32,800 Speaker 1: of reconstructing entire faces. The men would survive, but the 24 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:37,680 Speaker 1: trauma of such damage was grim. Anna Coleman Lad was 25 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:40,560 Speaker 1: an American sculptor from Boston who moved to France during 26 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:42,600 Speaker 1: World War One so that her husband could take a 27 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,880 Speaker 1: position with the Red Cross. After learning about the plight 28 00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:50,320 Speaker 1: of these men, she corresponded with English sculptor Francis derwent Wood, 29 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: the founder of the Tin Noses Shop in London, where 30 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,400 Speaker 1: he made tin masks for soldiers with facial mutilations. Then, 31 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:00,960 Speaker 1: with the help of the Red Cross, Lad set up 32 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:04,760 Speaker 1: her own studio in Paris, called the Studio for Portrait Masks. 33 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,800 Speaker 1: Lad turned out to have a real gift for crafting 34 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:13,840 Speaker 1: portrait masks, precursors to today's facial prostheses. The masks were 35 00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:17,160 Speaker 1: created to cover just the damaged portion of the soldier's face, 36 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:21,600 Speaker 1: which could of course, sometimes include the entire face. Lad's 37 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:24,040 Speaker 1: work was lauded as the best of its kind, and 38 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:28,800 Speaker 1: each mask took months to produce. In order to create 39 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:31,799 Speaker 1: a mask that resembled each man's pre war face as 40 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:36,400 Speaker 1: closely as possible, Lad first required photos of the original face, 41 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:40,000 Speaker 1: and after the wounds from the injury and any subsequent 42 00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:43,639 Speaker 1: surgery healed completely, she and her team got to work. 43 00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:47,360 Speaker 1: She took a plaster cast of the entire face and 44 00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:51,680 Speaker 1: from there made squeezes, clay or plast seen copies of 45 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,520 Speaker 1: the face on which Lad could base her portrait recreation work. 46 00:02:56,919 --> 00:03:00,040 Speaker 1: The masks themselves were made from very thin gall of 47 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:03,280 Speaker 1: anized copper, about the thickness of the cover of a paperback, 48 00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:07,799 Speaker 1: and they were usually held in place with spectacles. Lad 49 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:10,560 Speaker 1: painted each mask with enamel while the man was wearing 50 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:13,519 Speaker 1: it so she could get the best possible skin tone match. 51 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: Facial hair like mustaches, eyelashes, and eyebrows were added at 52 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,960 Speaker 1: the end with real hair. Although lad Studio was only 53 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,200 Speaker 1: open for a year, she and her four assistants created 54 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,480 Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty five masks which changed the lives 55 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,919 Speaker 1: of her clients. They reported being better able to live 56 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:36,360 Speaker 1: with their families, get jobs, and feel as if they belonged, 57 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,440 Speaker 1: rather than hiding away feeling monstrous in a veteran's home. 58 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:45,320 Speaker 1: Lad was a pioneer in facial prosthetics, and her results 59 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:48,480 Speaker 1: were remarkable, even though the masks she made were fragile 60 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,880 Speaker 1: and easily battered, and they didn't restore movement and function 61 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:55,640 Speaker 1: to the face. These days, facial pross theses are used 62 00:03:55,640 --> 00:04:00,320 Speaker 1: in situations in which surgical reconstruction isn't technically possible isn't 63 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:04,120 Speaker 1: recommended for the patient for other reasons. For the article, 64 00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:06,680 Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with 65 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:10,960 Speaker 1: one Garcia, an anaplastologist at the Johns Hopkins Carnegie Center 66 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: for Surgical Innovation. He said there are many reasons why 67 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:17,960 Speaker 1: a patient cannot have a surgical option offered to them. 68 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,560 Speaker 1: A person missing an eye and eyelids cannot have this reconstructed. 69 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,159 Speaker 1: Cancer patients who undergo radiation therapy do not heal well. 70 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,360 Speaker 1: The surgical reconstruction of the ear and nose is very 71 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:32,680 Speaker 1: delicate surgery, oftentimes leading to a poor aesthetic outcome, even 72 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:37,919 Speaker 1: in the hands of a skilled surgeon. Modern anaplastologists still 73 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,799 Speaker 1: work with plaster in paint, but they use modern dental 74 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:44,320 Speaker 1: materials like resin daie stone, an ultra strong form of 75 00:04:44,440 --> 00:04:47,920 Speaker 1: gypsum that behaves a lot like plaster along with paints 76 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:53,000 Speaker 1: mixed with silicone. Garcia said, unlike the painted, rigid masks 77 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 1: made of copper that Lad made, we generally sculpt the 78 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:59,240 Speaker 1: prosthetic device in wax before the stone mold is made 79 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:03,520 Speaker 1: to cast a saw flush like silicone prosthesis. These days, 80 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:07,919 Speaker 1: we used advanced digital technologies such as surface scanning, digital sculpting, 81 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:10,760 Speaker 1: and three D printing, and implants in the form of 82 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:15,719 Speaker 1: titanium screws, similar but shorter than dental implants. These screws 83 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:17,960 Speaker 1: are placed into the bone by a surgeon and can 84 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:22,960 Speaker 1: be used to hold the prosthesis in place. So nobody's 85 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,560 Speaker 1: holding their prosthesis on by dangling it from spectacles anymore. 86 00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:29,359 Speaker 1: But Lad paved the way for a lot of the 87 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,440 Speaker 1: good work anaplastologists do today, and the outcome is largely 88 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:38,039 Speaker 1: the same. Garcia said. The work of the anoplastologists allows 89 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:41,080 Speaker 1: patients to get back to their work, family, friends, and 90 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:44,400 Speaker 1: activities they enjoy. It allows them to move forward with 91 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,520 Speaker 1: their lives with a renewed sense of normalcy, albeit a 92 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:52,200 Speaker 1: new normal. Hopefully the work goes undetected. However, the main 93 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:54,800 Speaker 1: goal is to help the patient move from an isolated 94 00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:57,719 Speaker 1: and perhaps ostracized state to one where they can once 95 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:06,480 Speaker 1: again engage others. Today's episode is based on the article 96 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:09,920 Speaker 1: how a lone sculptor gave New Faces to injured soldiers 97 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:12,479 Speaker 1: of World War One on how stuff works dot Com, 98 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:15,400 Speaker 1: written by Jesslyn Shield. Brain Stuff is production of I 99 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:17,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, 100 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:20,840 Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts, in 101 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:24,040 Speaker 1: my Heart Radio is at the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 102 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:26,000 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.