Eye Prosthesis, with glasses, attributed to Frances D. Wood

During World War One, mankind’s military technology vastly outpaced the medical world. The war was changing Europe forever, claiming the lives of 8 million fighting men, and wounding over 20 million more. The horrific facial injuries faced by soldiers, fueled the development of facial prosthetics with sculptors like Anna Coleman Ladd and Francis Derwent Wood creating custom masks and innovative reconstructive surgery driven by surgeons like Harold Gillies.

Francis Derwent Wood established a department at the London General Hospital for facial disfigurement. This was known as the ‘Tin Nose Shop’. Instead of using conventional rubber, Wood would use thin, galvanised copper which could be sculpted and painted. The prosthetics were meticulously painted to match the skin tone of the soldier.

A few hundred were thought to have been made despite there being circa 20,000 soldiers experiencing facial wounds. Very few of these examples have survived.

A very scarce example.

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