Brief History of Aesthetic Surgery

“One may argue that Aesthetic Surgery is the pursuit of happiness, others argue that it is just about correcting mistakes of nature. A simpler view is that people have always wanted to be more beautiful; the mechanisms have just become more sophisticated. The discoveries of Anesthesia, Asepsis and Antibiotics have made Aesthetic Surgery a safe option in the quest for beauty.”

Johann Dieffenbach (1794-1846), is credited with being the founder of Modern Plastic Surgery. Anesthesia was invented by Edward Morton in 1846 in the USA and Dieffenbach was one of the first surgeons to use Ether Anesthesia in Germany. In 1865, surgical sterility or Asepsis was discovered by Prof. Joseph Lister in Glasgow, Scotland. These two advances of anesthesia and sterile safe surgery enabled surgeons to advance the science of aesthetic surgery. Below is a list of some aesthetic procedures and the surgeons and scientists who invented them.

Harold Gillies described how Plastic Surgery became established in England after World War I. “Before World War I Plastic Surgery was scarcely practiced as a specialty. Mostly the work was undertaken by whatever surgeon or specialist received the case, although there were a few outstanding exceptions. In 1917-18, 11,000 facial injury cases went through our hospital in England. At the end of the war [the specialty of Plastic Surgery] might have perished had it not been for the continued [efforts] of Gillies and Kilner. [Eventually] St, Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1930, and St. Thomas’s Hospital in 1934, appointed a Plastic Surgeon to their staffs.”

Gillies wrote his book, The Plastic Surgery of the Face in 1920. In 1926, Suzanne Nöel, in Paris, published her treatise Cosmetic Surgery and in 1931 Jacques Joseph in Berlin published Rhinoplasty and Facial Plastic Surgery with a Supplement on Mammaplasty. These books were the basis of modern Aesthetic Surgery. Two of Joseph’s students, Gustave Aufricht and Joseph Safian, emigrated to the United States from Europe and set up in private plastic surgery practice in New York in the 1920’s. On January 1, 1925, Dr. Jacques Maliniac convinced the New York City hospital system to establish the first division of plastic surgery at a public hospital.

In 1931, Maliniac and Aufricht, founded The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) which now includes more than 8,000 plastic surgeons worldwide. In 1937 The American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) was founded and this is still the only Board of Plastic Surgery recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties.

In 1960 Ivo Pitanguy founded his Aesthetic Surgery Residency Program in Rio de Janeiro and in 1967, The Aesthetic Society was founded in the United States. The Aesthetic Society now has over 2600 worlwide members. Also in 1967, Miami plastic surgeons Tom Baker and Howard Gordon began the Baker Gordon live cosmetic surgery symposium which still runs annually, more than a half-century later. In 1975 Tom Rees founded the first Aesthetic Surgery Fellowship program in the United States at the Manhattan Eye & Ear Hospital in New York City.

Below is a chart of milestones in Aesthetic Surgery including such notable influences as  the Kardashians, Real House Wives and Botched, TV shows which have popularized Aesthetic Surgery and made it a routine part of our lives.