Sir Harold (Delf) Gillies - Books:

Plastic surgeon, born in Dunedin, New Zealand. He studied at Wanganui College and Cambridge. In 1920 he published his Plastic Surgery of the Face, which established this subject as a recognized branch of medicine. During World War 2 he was responsible for setting up plastic surgery units throughout the country, and was personally in charge of one at Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke. In 1957 he published The Principles and Art of Plastic Surgery.

Sir Harold Delf Gillies (June 17, 1882 - September 10, 1960) was a New Zealand surgeon who is considered to be the father of plastic surgery.

Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Gillies married Kathleen Margaret Jackson on the November 9, 1911, in London.

Following the outbreak of World War I he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. Gillies became enthusiastic about the work and, returning to England, persuaded the army's chief surgeon, Arbuthnot Lane, that a facial injury ward should be established at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot. There Gillies and his colleagues developed many techniques of plastic surgery;

For his war services Gillies was knighted in the Birthday Honours list of June 1930.

Between the wars Gillies developed a substantial private practice, with Rainsford Mowlem, including many famous patients, and travelled extensively, lecturing, teaching and promoting the most advanced techniques worldwide.

In 1930 Gillies invited his cousin, Archibald McIndoe to join the practice, and also suggested he apply for a post at St Bartholomew's Hospital. This was the point at which McIndoe became committed to plastic surgery, in which he too became preeminent.

During World War II Gillies acted as a consultant to the Ministry of Health, the RAF and the Admiralty. During this period, and after the war, he trained many doctors from Commonwealth nations in plastic surgery.

In 1946, he and a colleague carried out the world's first sex reassignment surgery from female to male. In 1951 he and colleagues carried out the first sex reassignment surgery from male to female using a flap technique, which became the standard for 40 years.

Gillies wrote his first textbook "Plastic Surgery of the Face" in 1920 and, with D. A blue plaque on the front of that house commemorates his life and work

Books:

Pound R.