The First World War saw technologically advanced weapons such as heavy artillery, machine-guns and poison gas used on the battlefield, leading to a scale of deaths never seen before. Many of the survivors were left with severe facial injuries. Surgeon Sir Harold Gillies pioneered the techniques of plastic surgery to help restore their faces. The Royal College of Surgeons of England holds his patients’ case files, and here archives manager Victoria Rea explains how one file provides a glimpse of the human cost of
