World War I left thousands of soldiers with unprecedented levels of facial damage; trench warfare and progressive weapons lead to massive amounts of death and destruction. Explosions and rapid gunfire left those who survived with horribly disfigured faces, creating a dire demand for medical intervention. Dr. Harold Gillies of New Zealand developed and tested methods to restore function and structure to the faces of soldiers, such as taking cartilage or skin from an easily concealed part of the patient's body and using it to reform the injured area. Due to the thousands of soldiers in need of immediate medical attention, there were no shortage of willing trial subjects. Gillies based his work on methods that had been developed previously, but were never intended for such drastic application. He improved upon these efforts and, when combined with anaesthesia and sedating medication, found his techniques rapidly gaining in popularity. The call for doctors able to perform facial reconstruction grew rapidly and received national attention. Dr. Varaztad Kazanjian became the first recognized post-war plastic surgery specialist at Harvard Medical School. Years after the war ended, the supply of patients in need of life-saving facial reconstruction was steadily reducing. As such, surgeons were able to take on less dire cases, such as industrial accidents or other injuries. Techniques and procedures became more advanced and public knowledge of them grew.
