WEBVTT - What were war masks? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.880 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.680 and there's Charles to be, Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:23.079 and this is stuff you should know. The It's so 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.280 I don't know what addition this is. It's a good one, though, 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.680 I predict. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't know much about this, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.800 so I was when I found out. I was like, wow, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.120 this is this is right up our alley. Yeah. This 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.159 is UM part of what's very frequently called UM a 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.960 hidden history of World War One. This is not something 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.239 that a lot of people have known about for very long, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.120 although it seems to be picking up kind of academic interests. 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.320 But this idea of people who were disfigured in the 0:00:54.360 --> 0:01:00.000 war UM facial suffered facial disfigurements UM. And I should 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:01.560 I say, I want to say now before at the 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.440 outset UM facial differences is the preferred term. And there's 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.520 like a whole there's a whole sea change going on 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:15.000 in perception UM and you know, just being out there 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.240 with facial differences, it's like the antithesis of what we're 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.880 about to talk about. So hats off to that, um. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.800 But this was a time when there was a huge 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:30.440 sudden uptick in facial disfigurements is what they call them, 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.920 from being at war. Yeah, I mean World War One 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.720 was a brand new war. Uh. The Industrial Revolution brought 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.920 on new horrific ways to kill people, like the machine gun. 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:49.040 The machine gun uh in trench warfare, they point out 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.360 and in both of these articles that I read that, UM, people, 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:55.160 the soldiers at the time still didn't have a full 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.640 understanding of just what machine gun meant, and that you 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.760 don't have time to go pook your head above the 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.000 trench and look real quick, like those bullets are faster 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:09.480 than you, right, and you're not dodging one bullet. There's 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.600 a bunch of them comings. Maybe you get out of 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.600 the way of one, but there's three more headed your 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.880 way to. Yeah, so there wasn't I mean, it sounds 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.040 weird to think of that now, but there was not 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.760 that full understanding, and a lot of men in World 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.040 War One had a lot of bad things happened to 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.200 their face. Yeah. So not just from machine gun fire, 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.720 from sticking their head up above a trench, but also 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.280 from those mortar shells they've been around for a little while. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.840 But they just prior to World War One, had really 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:42.320 been perfected into like really destructive instruments. Um, they blew 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.280 up and they created a totally different type of wound 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:51.560 than a bullet hole does because they're jagged pieces of metal, iron, steel, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.560 and they could say, tear your lower jaw completely off, um, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.480 take off half of your face like they just did 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.560 all sorts of really weird, horrible things. And that that 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:09.680 advancement in UM weaponry, I guess you'd call it, combined 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:14.760 with some advancements in UM battlefield emergency medicine, so that 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.799 saving lives. Yeah, So that there were worse wounds than 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.480 ever before, but the potential of surviving a wound like 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.280 that was also greater than ever before, which culminated in 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.600 a huge uptick in people who whose faces had been 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.840 disfigured by either bullets or shrapnel. UM, more than anyone 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.960 had ever seen before. And as far as numbers went. Yeah, 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:39.880 there are a couple of doctors in these articles that 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.240 have quotes, and one of them talked about like, you 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.720 don't we didn't see a broken bone. We saw bones 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.360 that were just shattered UM. At the time, I think 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:57.360 another quote talked about the weaponry was outpacing medicine um 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:58.840 and like you said, they would may be able to 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.240 save lives more, but it was outpacing like, well, now, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.280 what do we do right? We don't have the means 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.240 to do facial reconstruction like they will in the future. 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.080 And in a very weird but also really real way, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:17.160 World War One pushed reconstructive surgery to to advance by 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.240 leaps and bounds, just by all of a sudden having 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:22.599 a bunch of people to practice on and trying new 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.920 techniques on, but also having to do that all of 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.200 a sudden, you know, rather than slowly taking your time. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.000 It was like, no, you need to figure this out now. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.280 And a lot of surgical techniques advance. But a lot 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.920 of people point to World War One as like kind 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.040 of the dividing line between anything that came before as 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:47.120 far as plastic surgery goes, and modern plastic surgery really 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.400 started in World War One. But people have been doing 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.800 stuff as far as plastic surgery goes for more than 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.599 a thousand years before World World War One, or no, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:03.080 about almost three thousand years, hundred years at least. That's 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.000 that's as far as I'm going I'm the worst at 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.320 figuring out Uh, time spans over centuries, as you know. 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.040 That's why I never do it. Um, you always leave it. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:16.960 I usually just say the year and you're like, you 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.599 can figure it out how long ago that was? Um? 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.920 But about six is when we have evidence on paper 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:32.560 or papyri peppery of actual repairing things on the face 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.360 like that and suturing things on the face. Um. And Uh, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.719 I believe there was a Hindu doctor named Sasarata who 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:45.320 developed the first rhino plasty. Yeah, because in India, especially 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.480 during this time, like I think this is about this 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.440 is five BC, so about years ago. Um, if you 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.640 were caught stealing, you would get your nose lopped off. 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.800 You could also get it lopped off in war and 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.680 happened frequently enough that it was an Indian doctor at 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.799 that time who who created the technique of like building 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.000 a new nose. Uh. Your nose could also just fall off. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.200 If it was the seventeen hundreds and you had syphilis, yes, 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.480 can you imagine something like that? No, syphilis sounds awful. 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.560 I mean it would drive you in crazy to attack 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.520 your spine. But there were also these necrotic lesions called 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:29.520 gummos her gummas then an awful name for something that 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.200 eats your face away, a gumma. Oh I got a 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.120 new gumma today. Look at this thing, um. But it 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.200 would eat your nose clear off, It would eat your 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.920 eye out of its socket, It would eat your mouth away. Um. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.960 And the prevalence of syphilis actually was something that kind 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.080 of pushed um plastic surgery along as well. Yeah, they 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:55.320 started experimenting with skin grafting U in the early eighteen hundreds. Um. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.599 The turn plastic surgery didn't actually come about until the 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.000 eighteen hundreds, but they were you know, I can't imagine 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.240 the results were great, but they you know, they were 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.479 leading the way all over the world with some things 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.000 like skin graphs and plastic surgery. Very rudimentary and crude, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.960 but it did pave the way. Yeah, they were figuring 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.640 out techniques, but again they didn't have they didn't have 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.400 something like World War One to push things for. They 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.600 had syphilis, which is something um. But the they had 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.680 like cleft palates was one that was a surgery that 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.640 that had been not perfected or anything like that, but 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.520 it was a surgery you'd frequently see if you were 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.600 a surgeon you might be asked to do. But um, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.240 World War One again just brought on a drove of 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.320 totally different cases that no one had ever seen before. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.520 So they had to get clever. And there were a 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.680 couple of people who kind of came to the fore 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.600 just as far as the plastic surgery went. There was 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.840 a guy from New Zealand named Gillies. What was his 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.440 first name, Chuck Mickey, You know I was going to 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:07.480 say that right now. His name was Sir Harold Gillies. Uh. 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:09.280 There were a few people there were, and we'll talk 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.760 about all of them kind of as we go here, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.240 but Sir Harold Gillies. Uh, there was a gentleman name 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:20.440 Francis Derwent Would and then there was a woman named 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:27.280 Anna Coleman Lad and they all contributed greatly to this 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:33.520 new cause of this really really sad cause of these 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.240 men coming home with these really terrible things that have 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.480 happened to their face. And not only like I'm shunned 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.400 by society, but like my kids can't look at me, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.600 My wife wants to leave me, and some of these 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.160 soldiers are like and she rightfully should want to leave me, 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.800 Like how can she even look at me, and it 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.040 was just such an awful thing to have to live with. 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.720 And they all chipped into um I mean I call 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.480 them war masks basically like these wound masks. And they 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.080 would make and if you see the pictures of these, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.559 it's amazing. They these before and after photos. They would 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.240 make masks and we'll get into the nitty gritty, but 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.760 essentially masks to cover these what what they called then disfigurements, 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.960 whether it was a missing I a missing nose, the 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.839 lower half of your jaw, so it wouldn't be something 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.320 you wore over your entire face, it would just be 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.360 the part that they needed. Right. So initially it was um, okay, 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.240 we can advance plastic surgery. And that's where Harold Gillies 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.000 came in. He founded a hospital at sid Cup, which 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.760 is outside of London from what I understand, and it 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.280 was um that was where you would go if you 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:47.040 were British to get your to get plastic surgery. And 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.000 you could go stay there for like two years basically 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.360 getting a series of surgery and a series of surgery 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.600 just one after the other, um recovering new surgery, recovering 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:02.880 new surgery. And if they couldn't quite do it. Um, 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.199 they would send you over to Francis de Wentwood. We'll 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.520 talk about in a second, But there were there were 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:15.080 limits to plastic surgery. And when plastic surgery reached its limits, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.720 and I guess the soldier's face was still uh disfigured 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.840 to the point where he didn't feel like he could 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.160 return to society, or society was like, damn, you stay 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.280 over there. Then Francis der went would an anneet Anna 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.000 Coleman lad came into play. Yeah, he wrote, Gillies wrote 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:36.640 of and he he pioneered a lot of work that 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.079 they still say is still important to modern plastic surgery. UM. 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.199 And he ended up writing a book and he he 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.040 was the guy that said, you know, before this, we 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.360 were doing things like cleft palates, and all of a 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.040 sudden we were getting two thousand patients a day coming 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.599 in with the most horrific injuries you could imagine. And 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.160 he ended up writing a book called A Plastic Surgery 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.400 of the Face. And if you look at this book, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.199 and this article rightfully points out it's um, it really 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.640 demonstrates how far they had come and what they were 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.079 able to do, but also what they weren't able to 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.640 do at all at the same time. Yeah, like their 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.360 limitations even though he was doing for the time really 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.640 really advanced work. Yeah, I mean stuff we're like you 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:24.160 cut out a piece of skin and so it to 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.440 another part of your skin so that there's blood flow, 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.079 and then you cut off where it was originally connected 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.599 and then so that part down and basically you just 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.000 inchworm skin down the face to where you want it. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:40.760 Like they were figuring out things like you have to 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.240 keep it a blood supply going or else it's gonna 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.439 just rot and fall off, like like really advanced stuff. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.760 And like in a lot of cases, they they were 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.800 able to restore the soldier's face basically back to or 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.360 some close simularity similarity to what it was prior to 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.760 the injury. But again there were plenty of them where 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:03.959 it was just like, we can't do anything for you, man, 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.360 And that's when they would go that. It was when 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.199 those cases started to build up, Francis to Wentwood and 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.560 Anna Coleman lad stepped in. So we take a break. Yeah, 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:38.960 all right, we'll take a break right now. So one 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:40.800 thing I want to mention real quick is I don't 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.480 think we talked about was outside sid Cup or in 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.440 Sidcup where Gillies had his hospital. Uh, they had there 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.079 were so many men coming through there. They had in 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.720 the town they had certain benches painted were they painted blue? Uh? 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.360 And if there was a bench painted blue, it was 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.360 sort of a I guess you are, lack of a 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.560 better word, of warning to society, like here's where these 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.800 patients will be sitting, and you might want to not 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.839 sit there and look at them. Right. It was like 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.960 a horrible thing to do, but it was just sort 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.680 of emblematic of like what these men had to go through, 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.920 like children terrified in public of these people, Like they 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.240 wouldn't put mirrors in these hospitals. Well yeah, and it 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:31.400 was supposedly it was an enormous shock to see yourself. 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.400 I can't even imagine it, Like I can't imagine what 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.559 it what it would be like to see your face 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.959 like missing major features because and this was a recurring 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.600 theme that I saw in a lot of the um 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.959 like academic coverage of this is like, on the one hand, 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:50.680 what these people were doing, it was like really great 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:52.760 and noble and they were trying to help these people 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.480 regain their identity. But at the other it's kind of like, um, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.800 what does it say about society that, like these people 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.240 couldn't come back because they were missing like an eye 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.719 or a mouth or or something like that. You know, 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.120 it's like stay in your house, like we don't. I 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.000 don't want my kid to see this second thing. Yeah, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.000 there's a complicated thing going on here. It's complex. It's 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.360 not just cut and dry like that was right. This 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.920 guy was missing a face. Gotta have a face. They 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.800 made him a mask to cover up his deformity. Um, 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:24.760 it was. There's more to it than that, you know. 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.720 I mean we're at a place now where we're making 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.760 great strides and acceptance of of stuff like this. But 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.840 imagine it's still bad. Imagine what it was like back then. 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.080 Have you seen that movie Wonder? No, it's so good? 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.040 What is it? So sweet? It's like put a little 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.120 boy with facial differences and like him going from home 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:51.000 school to school year. Um, it's heartbreakingly sweet. Owen Wilson's 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.680 dad doing his own Wilson think Julie Roberts plays his 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.000 Mom's great. It's a great movie we're seeing. Um. But yeah, 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.840 there's a there's a whole movement go going on. I 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.960 follow this this account. I think there might be British 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.880 called changing faces, and they're all just like out, I'm proud, 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.160 like this is my face, Like I'm sorry, I'm I 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.280 can't do anything about it. I'm not gonna do anything 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:18.600 about it. Um, you know, let's let's move from there. 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.320 And uh, it's neat. It's neat to see just that. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.520 That change a huge shift from hugo stay over here 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.760 out of society, Like society doesn't really feel like it 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.040 can ask that of people any longer, whereas before it 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.320 was like my wife can't even look at me. She's 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.680 repulsed by me, and she she deserves to be. That's 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.600 a huge change, you know, and I think that's wonderful. Well, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:43.120 and it was also at the same time where you 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:48.360 would uh, where Kennedy would get lobotomized and stuffed in 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.840 a a insane asylum forever never to be talked about again, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.600 or you know, people committed family members, like a dark 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.360 time for humanity. Yes, and we're just now coming out 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.120 of it a little bit. Well, we we've come a 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.720 long way since then, obviously, but it's just amazing how 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.000 many I don't know how much of the stuff still 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:13.480 goes on. Sad Should we talk about the masks. So 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.480 if if Harold Gillies couldn't do anything for you, um, 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.360 you would move on to Francis derwent Wood, who was 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:27.280 an artiste if there ever was one. Yes, So he 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:32.560 had a shop, uh called the Tin Knows a Shop. Yeah, 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.680 he didn't call it that, he didn't, I don't know. 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.600 He may have facetiously, but it was the Tommy's the 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.720 wounded British soldiers who called it that. Yeah, t I 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.440 n as in you don't have a nose, here's one 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.640 made of tin. So yeah, they called it the Tin 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.800 Knows a Shop. Yeah, but technical. But the official name 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:58.360 was the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department. Yes, and it was. 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.320 It was founded by Francis to White would who um 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:03.960 he was, like I said, he was an artist and 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:10.080 he um and enlisted as a private in the medical 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:14.479 core at age forty four, Yeah, which is obviously, especially 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.159 back then, kind of old to do something like that. Uh. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.440 He found pretty quickly that he didn't get a great duty. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.600 He was, um he described as errand boy chores and 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:27.359 he had a knack though. He was an artist, so 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.080 he had a knack for coming up with some pretty 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.640 ingenious things. At first it was splints that were apparently 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.600 pretty creative and sophisticated. Then those chattering teeth that just 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:41.640 made everybody laugh because we're his Why was that everything? 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.720 I don't know, is that supposed to be funny? I guess, 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.480 look at those teeth chatter seventies, I guess. So I 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:49.119 was in the pet rock, which, by the way, I 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.800 want to do a show on that. Is there shows 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:53.680 worth of material or is that like a short stuff? 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.320 Do you think? I don't know, we'll find out. Yeah, 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.119 that's a nice tease. Um, maybe we'll come up with 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.919 the third podcast. It is called Somewhere in Between Stuff 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:08.520 exactly twenty three minutes exactly. Um, so, yeah, he was 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.800 doing Aaron Boy stuff. Had a lot of creativity. I 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.840 guess he caught the eye of the people there and 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.880 as an artist they said, you know what, you could 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.960 actually be very useful and constructing this kind of new idea. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.240 Which are these uh these and again that's what they 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.320 call them back then, like disfigurement masks. Right, they had stuff. 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.440 They had prosthetics before facial prosthetics, but they were made 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.040 of rubber. They weren't very good they aesthetically they were 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.760 they were utilitarian. They were They were meant to maybe 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.600 help you chew again if you were missing your lower jaw, 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.639 um whatever. They were meant to solve the problem of 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.320 the missing function. This is the opposite of that. Yeah, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.840 this is cosmetic. I guess you would call very much 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.560 so aesthetic cosmetic. Francis to Wentwood said like, I'm like, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:02.920 I'm not trying to restore function. That's not the point 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.919 of what I'm doing. Um, what I'm doing is restoring identity. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.240 Somebody put it that he was making portraits out of 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.760 metal they called them portrait masks, right, yeah, and then 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.080 putting them on to the person to to basically restore 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.080 their look back to what it was pre war. Yes, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.320 and they were also very intent at at Wood's shop 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:33.040 of um treating these men with dignity and respect um too. 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:35.760 I think one of the nurses even talked about how 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:40.880 beautiful a face without a nose was. She was, Yeah, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.400 it was Kathleen Scott, who was the widow of Robert Scott, 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.760 Robert Falcon Scott, who died in Antarctica on an expedition. 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.359 But she was a she was a sculptor who helped 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.080 out And it's like these are people still and they're 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.679 beautiful in their own way. Yeah. Her quote was men 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.600 without noses are very beauty full, like antique marbles, which 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.399 I have seen antique marbles all the time, so you 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.440 know exactly what she meant. They also said it would 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.480 shop to always look a man straight in the face. Remember, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.080 he's watching your face to see how you're going to react. 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.160 So it started when they first would come in there 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:24.000 with being treated like a human being, which really is great. 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:29.640 So uh. He would establish his unit in March nineteen sixteen, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:35.000 and by June of the following year he appeared in 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.040 the Lancet, the great legendary British medical journal that's still 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.000 around today. And then eventually at the end towards the 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.920 end of nineteen seventeen, there was a Boston based sculptor 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.480 in the United States, obviously in her previously to being married. 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.200 She was Anna Coleman Watts, and she was very talented 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.639 as a sculptor and eventually married a man named Maynard 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.280 lad who was a physician, and he moved to France 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.280 with him because he got a gig with the Red Cross. Yeah, 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:11.240 he was like the injured Children's core leader something like that. 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.159 Man um and yeah. So they moved to France and 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.640 she found out what Francister went Wood was doing back 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.480 in England and she's like, I'm going to try that here. 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.720 So with the Red Cross she set up something called 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:29.280 the Um Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris in the 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:34.960 Latin Quarter and she went to work doing the same thing. Again, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.040 this is all pioneering stuff, Like these people were making 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.520 this up as they went along. There were a couple 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.320 of trained sculptors who turned during the war, turned their 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:50.760 talents to restoring facial identity to men whose faces have 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:55.520 been disfigured by shrapnelan bullets. Yeah, and by all accounts, Um, 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.840 the lad Studio was very much the same way of 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.440 like trying to set them up for success as humans 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.360 and treating them with dignity or place in the Latin 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.480 Quarter was very beautiful. It was described as a large, 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.520 bright studio Uh, plants and ivy on the walls and 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.200 flowers everywhere, and she wanted to make it like I 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.480 think it's a it's significant that these were artists and 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.880 not from the medical establishment, because they wanted to set 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.760 up these beautiful places for these men to come and 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.520 feel good about what's going on there? And I think 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.159 at the time, like hospitals were grim and any kind 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.600 of treatment you got was just I mean, we've talked 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.160 a lot about old medicine. It was not a sunny 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.600 experience in any way. Then those horrid like wicker wheelchairs 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.200 that are the creepiest things anyone's ever seen. Yeah, so 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.920 Lad tried to set up a really lovely, cheery, welcoming 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:52.400 space for her patients to come in, which is just great. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.040 And there's news real footage from that era of Lad 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.120 working in her studio with one of her patient clients. 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.000 I don't know what you'd all him, but I think 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.720 he's missing a substantial part of his lower face, maybe 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.800 his lower jaw. And she attaches the prosthetic the mask 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:13.560 and like tucks it behind his ears, like it hangs 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.480 on behind his ears right, and um, it's it's the 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.920 neatest thing. Like he smiles, like he goes from not 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:23.600 sad but neutral, but then all of a sudden he 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.479 smiles and it's like it was a warm, genuine smile. Um. 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.159 And it's it's really moving because you can read about it. 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.080 It's like we did all you want and like, oh, 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.560 here's this quote from this person, and this person said 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:38.640 this was an amazing thing too. And here's a letter 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:43.040 of somebody. We're seeing that guy smile when when um, 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:47.040 when Anna Coleman lab puts the prosthetic on his face, 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.480 says it all like all comes into to focus what 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:54.159 everybody in the articles are talking about. Yeah, and there 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.520 are a lot of great before and after photos of 0:23:57.600 --> 0:23:59.440 the end. We'll get in, you know, in a few 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:01.480 minutes on how what they made these things. But there 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:03.200 are a lot of great before and after photos. And 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:07.600 when you look at these because initially in today's in 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.680 two thousand eighteen, is you think about, well, these people 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.040 had a horrific thing happened to their face, and so 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:18.720 now they wear a mask like attached by either eyeglasses 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.560 or hooked over their ears to to mesh with the 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:23.480