Anaplastology. How were prosthetic masks made for disfigured soldiers?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The First World War claimed the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians, and the medicine of that time faced a serious problem - many returned from the front with disfigured faces due to bullet wounds, burns, etc. Plastic surgery in the first half of the 20th did not yet allow performing complex operations, so prosthetic masks became the only way out for such soldiers.

Death was a gift

The governments of the countries have tried to provide as much support as possible to the crippled war veterans. For example, in the UK, injured soldiers were often the only veterans eligible for a full military pension. It was believed that people with a severely disfigured face should be fully provided with assistance from the state they defended.

Such people were often doomed to life-long isolation, and only an operation could somehow remedy their situation. An American surgeon who worked in France after the end of the war noted that the psychological impact on a person who must go through life with such grief defies description. It was the First World War that gave a strong impetus to the development of plastics throughout the world. Surgeons tried their best to help their patients, performing rather complex operations, which, unfortunately, did not help much in solving the problem. After the scars healed and tightened, the faces did not look much better.

However, more complex surgeries such as reconstructing the nose or jaw with surgery were nearly impossible to do successfully. For many, in order to at least partially return to normal life, there was only one practical solution - face masks.

Who and how created prosthetic masks

It's hard to believe, but during the First World War only two people were engaged in the manufacture of prosthetic masks: the Englishman Francis Wood and the American Anna Ladd. And they were both sculptors.

Anna was an American sculptor in Manchester, Massachusetts. During the war in 1917, she moved to Paris with her husband, Dr. Maynard Ladd. In France, she was inspired by the work of the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood. At that time he worked in the studio of "Portrait Masks" in Paris, which he himself founded.

At first, Anna worked with Wood, but soon Ladd opened her own studio. According to Novate.ru, over the years Anna and Francis have helped hundreds of wounded soldiers. For these unfortunate people, these were not just masks, but in fact new faces and a chance for a normal life.

The process of creating the mask began with the removal of plaster casts of the soldier's face. After that, a shape was created from individual copper fragments, which completely covered the damaged part. Facial features were usually taken from photographs. If the soldiers did not have them, then the task became more difficult. After creating the model, the finished product was painted using hard enamel that matched the color of the soldier's skin. Real hair was used to make eyelashes, eyebrows and even a mustache.

The masks weighed on average about two hundred grams. With each new mask, the sculptors improved their skills. Anna and Francis' main patients were French soldiers, but there were also British and even Russians. Naturally, the production of masks was completely free. Anna was able to make 185 prostheses on her own. In 1932, Anna Ladd was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor of France for her charitable work.

What happened next

After the war, the technology developed by Anna and Francis received the official name - anaplastology. Today it is a separate branch of medicine that deals with prosthetics of any missing, disfigured or deformed part of the human face. As for Anna herself, she returned to America shortly after the end of the war, but her studio continued to work until 1920.

Unfortunately, there are no records of people wearing masks after the war. It is only known for certain that the prostheses had a very short shelf life. In her notes, Ladd noted that one of the patients continued to wear the mask constantly, despite the fact that it was very frayed and looked terrible.

Today the vast majority of these masks are lost. Many have concluded that they were buried with their owners. Post-war medical techniques, including anaplastology and plastic surgery, have improved significantly. Despite this, modern methods still cannot give the most positive result.