Gillies in India
Harold Gillies played a significant role in the inception of formal plastic surgery units within Indian hospitals.
In the post second world war period Sir Harold Gillies continued to operate and teach at Rooksdown hospital near Basingstoke in Hampshire. Here he continued innovating and pushing the boundaries of plastic surgery. Here too he trained many young international plastic surgeons who became the foundation of the specialty worldwide in the post war period. These included several Indian trainees. Including someone we know only from the back of a photograph as “Sharma from Delhi”. But he was probably from another city. There was also someone who would become more significant, whom Gillies called “that delight of a man, doctor NH Antia”. “We have enjoyed our Indian house officers” he said. “They’re good”.
Obviously enlightened by them, Gillies accepted a request to tour India. His purpose in going was to use his fame within the specialty to further and popularise knowledge of plastic surgery in India. He arrived on November 21st 1957. He was accompanied by his newly married second wife, Marjorie Clayton. She had previously been his long-time theatre sister, and he relied upon her a great deal, in India referring to her as “my surgical assistant, lecturer to nurses and secretary.”
At this stage, Indian plastic surgery was at a point akin to that of Britain some two decades earlier. Antia, was one of only four or five plastic surgeons whose work was entirely within the discipline, but there was no properly established “Plastic Surgery” specialty in the country. Only the year before in 1956 had the Association of Surgeons of India passed a resolution forming an Association of Plastic Surgeons of India - as a section of ASI itself.
On this first visit, having spent a couple of days in Bombay, Gillies went on to Poona, initially as the guest of Dr Coyaji at the Jehangir Hospital. Antia was also in Pune at the time, only later obtaining a post at the JJ Hospital in Bombay, with the help of a reference from Gillies. Everywhere he went Gillies was introduced as “the revered father of modern plastic surgery”. He was overwhelmed by the hospitality and interest of his hosts. In turn, the locals were pleased Gillies was surprised at the sophistication of reconstructive work, being further advanced there than he had imagined.
A typed itinerary, within the Collection shows that he stayed for two and a half months operating and lecturing, visting Pune, Patna, Mumbai, Delhi – where he got himself arrested for photographing the presidents house, Agra, Darjeeling and Calcutta. Crucially on 27th December 1957, in Nagpur, he attended the Association of Surgeons of India Conference at which the APSI held its inaugural meeting. They elected RN Cooper as its first President and making Gillies its first honorary member.
Gillies was back in November 1959, for another three-months. He went back to Cooper and Antia, now at the JJ Hospital, and where the first formal unit in India had been established between his visits in December 1958. Gillies gave 27 lectures, one for 4 hours, using 200 slides! He listed doing 41 operations, demonstrating many of the procedures he was well known for.
But his visits were more than simply about teaching. They became a mission to assist Indian surgeons establish plastic surgery as its own specialty. He was especially keen to properly organise burn care in the country. In March 1960, shortly after returning home, he wrote a formal report to the Surgeon General in Bombay. It made the case for the establishment of more plastic surgery and Burns units in India. It became an influential document assisting the local surgeons in furthering the cause of plastic surgery In the country.
Afterwards In a letter of thanks to Gillies, Dr Rangiah of Chennai observed “It is bewildering to recall how our country, once adept in plastic surgery, could have relegated it to the limbo of forgotten practices.” In reply, Gillies observed “I visualise that India is going to stage a comeback in plastic surgery.” Cooper too wrote to thank him for his “selfless efforts to stimulate an interest in this branch of Surgery". In a letter to another Indian pioneer, C Balakrishnan, Gillies had said “I think I did accomplish something towards putting plastic surgery on the map in India”.
Place names used are appropriate to the time period