'Rekindling the Desire to Live.' Nursing Men Following Facial Injury and Surgery during the First World War

This article discusses the role of nurses in caring for men following wartime facial injury and surgery during and immediately after World War One. Although much has been written about the pioneering work that was done in the field of plastic surgery (most famously by Dr Harold D Gillies, and his team) less is known about the nurses who worked alongside him, who he himself acknowledged, “have borne the brunt of the work.” (Gillies, 1920). This article aims to increase understanding of the ways in which nurses working in this speciality attempted to ameliorate their patients’ psychological wounds as well as their physical ones