The Economist - USA (2022-06-11)

84 Culture The Economist June 11th 2022

had rarely been seen before, and there was

no  established  method  for  treating  them.

As one nurse at the time put it: the “science

of healing stood baffled before the science

of destroying”.

Gillies,  who  was  born  in  New  Zealand,

studied  at  Cambridge  University  and  St

Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He was

particularly  interested  in  otorhinolaryn­

gology—today  simplified  as  ent,  or  ears,

nose  and  throat—and  enjoyed  a  comfort­

able life at a practice in Marylebone before

war  broke  out.  Once  hostilities  began,

however, he recognised the need for medi­

cal volunteers. He signed up with the Red

Cross  and,  leaving  his  pregnant  wife  and

small child behind, set off for France. 

At the front he met Auguste Charles Va­

ladier, a Franco­American dentist who had

converted  his  Rolls­Royce  into  a  mobile

clinic.  Valadier  helped  rebuild  soldiers’

jaws  by  performing  bone  grafts  and  “dis­

traction osteogenesis”, a method still used

today  which  involves  separating  bone  to

promote  new  growth.  Valadier’s  work

demonstrated to Gillies the importance of

getting the “architecture” of the face right

before  addressing  tissue  damage.  Gillies

also  visited  Hippolyte  Morestin,  a  French

surgeon skilled at both removing facial tu­

mours  and  repairing  the  resulting  disfig­

urement using flaps of skin.

Gillies  soon  became  convinced  of  the

need  for  a  specialist  maxillofacial  unit  in

Britain, and established one first in Alder­

shot, then in Sidcup. Thousands of soldiers

came to him with an array of ghastly inju­

ries.  (Ms  Fitzharris  does  not  flinch  when

describing crushed jaws, sliced noses and

cheeks perforated by bullets.) Many afflic­

tions  had  been  made  worse  by  hasty  at­

tempts to stitch the wound. Gillies worked

carefully  and  was  attentive  to  both  form

and function. 

He was also unfailingly kind to his pa­

tients,  cognisant  of  the  importance  of  an

individual’s features to their sense of iden­

tity.  “Don’t  worry,  sonny,”  he  would  say,

“you’ll be all right and have as good a face

as  most  of  us  before  we’re  finished  with

you.” In the persona of “Dr Scroggie”, he en­

couraged  his  patients  to  break  hospital

rules  around  drinking  and  gambling,

thereby  introducing  fun  into  the  long,

tedious and painful rehabilitation period.

As  photographs  attest,  Gillies  often

made good on his promise. But it involved

a  lot  of  trial  and  error.  Penicillin  had  not

yet  been  discovered,  and  infection  was  a

risk. Grafts sometimes did not take. Anaes­

thetic  proved  difficult  to  administer  to

those  with  facial  injuries.  Patients  re­

quired multiple surgeries in order that the

work could be done incrementally; Gillies

removed  the  mirrors  from  his  wards  so

that patients would not be disheartened by

their appearance during the process. 

Inevitably,  “The  Facemaker”  some­

times  makes  for  sad  reading.  One  young

man, “Corporal X”, made an astounding re­

covery  after  shrapnel  destroyed  his  face.

But  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  reflection

and, appalled by what he saw, wrote a letter

to  his  fiancée  and  childhood  sweetheart

claiming that he had fallen in love with an­

other  woman.  “It  wouldn’t  be  fair  to  let  a

girl like Molly be tied to a miserable wreck

like me,” he said. “I’m not going to let her

sacrifice  herself  out  of  pity.”  After  he  was

discharged, Corporal X became a recluse.

“All the time, we were fumbling towards

new  methods  and  new  results,”  Gillies

wrote.  Among  his  inventive  techniques

were “tubed pedicles”, a way of transplant­

ing skin and soft tissues, and the “epitheli­

al outlay”, a skin­grafting technique which

allowed  him  to  reconstruct  eyelids.  After

the war he outlined these methods in two

influential  books.  In  1944  he  proposed  a

professional  body  for  British  plastic  sur­

geons,onethatwould“upholdthestan­

dards”ofthespecialty.In 1946 hebecame

itsfirstpresident.

MsFitzharrismighthavespentmore

timeonGillies’slegacyandpost­warca­

reer.Shenotesthathiscousin,Archibald

McIndoe,wouldfollow himinto plastic

surgery and build on his maxillofacial

workwhentreatingpilotsduringthesec­

ondworldwar,butdoesnotsayhow.(She

doesacknowledgethatGillieswasthefirst

surgeontocompletea successfulphallo­

plasty;hisworkformedthebasisofmod­

ern gender­reassignment surgery.) But

these are minor faultsin an accessible

book.“TheFacemaker”isanengagingbio­

graphyofa masterfulsurgeonaswellasa

hearteningaccountofmedicalprogress.n

JosephineBaker

On the world stage

I

nmodernparlance,shewasa “triple

threat”. Josephine Baker could act, dance

and  sing—and  did  all  three  at  Chez  Jose­

phine, her nightclub in Paris, and in sever­

al  films.  After  escaping  the  Jim  Crow

South,  she  found  fame  in  Europe  in  the

period between the wars and made France

her adopted home. Dancing in risqué cos­

tumes,  she  helped  Parisians  remember

how  to  enjoy  themselves.  Sidonie­Gabri­

elleColette,a Frenchauthor,likenedBaker

to a “most beautiful panther”. Ernest Hem­

ingway  reckoned  the  performer  was  “the

most  sensational  woman  anybody  ever

saw. Or ever will.” 

Perhaps  Baker  should  be  considered  a

quadruple  threat,  as  she  also  displayed  a

talent  for  spying  during  the  second  world

war. She helped the Allies as an honourable

correspondent of the Deuxième Bureau, or

French  military  intelligence,  ferrying  se­

cret  documents  across  enemy  lines.  (She

often pinned papers to her underclothes.)

Whereas the typical agent receded into the

shadows, fame was her cover. As she brass­

ily declared: “Who would dare search Jose­

phine Baker to the skin?” 

Her  contributions  to  the  war  effort  are

now  reasonably  well  known,  described  in

numerous  biographies,  television  series

and  films.  Baker  received  the  Légion

d’Honneur  and  a  symbolic  interment  in

the  Panthéon,  a  monument  to  French  na­

tional  heroes.  But  additional  files  on  her

intelligence activities were released by the

French government in 2020 and are the oc­

casion for a new book by Damien Lewis, a

popular  historian.  “The  Flame  of  Resis­

tance”  (to  be  published  as  “Agent  Jose­

phine”  in  America)  is  an  entertaining,  if

occasionally  breathless,  account  of  a  true

hero of the second world war.

Baker’s early missions involved helping

the British and French governments divine

the  intentions  of  Italy  and  Japan  before

they  joined  the  Axis.  With  her  easy  glam­

our and charm, she earned the confidence

of an attaché at the Italian embassy and got

him talking about Mussolini’s plans to ally

with  Germany.  Next  Baker  exploited  a

friendship with the wife of Japan’s ambas­

sador to France to pick up titbits about that

country’s intentions. Both efforts were cit­

ed in a later war decoration. 

The Flame of Resistance: The Untold

Story of Josephine Baker’s Secret War.By

Damien Lewis. Quercus; 496 pages; £21.99.

To be published as “Agent Josephine:

American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy ”

in America by PublicAffairs in July; $32

Singing, dancing and doing her duty