At the Cusp of Medical Research: Facial Reconstructive Surgery and the Role of Photography in Exchanging Methods and Ideas (1914–1920)

Abstract

This article examines how the dental and surgical communities treating facial injuries during the First World War used photography for scientific education, to exchange, debate, and disseminate methods and ideas on facial reconstruction. Following the turn to practices, materials, and networks of knowledge in recent photographic history, this article explores how photographs enabled surgeons to identify, recognize, and accurately assess a range of facial injuries and surgical procedures and allowed surgeons to think about their practice and methods of treatment, and then critique courses of action within the larger group. To determine the specific role played by photographs in shaping networks of knowledge and interrelationships between medical societies, the article will explore how groups of surgeons used photographs at meetings, lectures and in medical journals to communicate facts about facial injuries to the wider surgical profession. Photography was part of the flow of information within the scientific exchange system. Within the context of surgical lectures and meetings held at the Royal Society of Medicine and Royal College of Surgeons by the British Dental and Medical Associations between 1914 and 1920, photography increasingly played a part in framing interaction between groups of surgeons, including Franco-British exchanges. In conclusion, this article argues that photographs became active performers in the dissemination of surgical knowledge and meaning on facial reconstructive surgery during the First World War and were integral in the shaping of medical thinking.