There are only good things about Gaspare Tagliacozzi. This man is considered by many to be the father of plastic surgery, a branch of medicine that you would rather associate with the modern era. But he started this work in the 16th century, and he did it so well that, look, there is no person who does not know him.

You can’t even leave the house because all the “good people” wear t-shirts and caps with his name on them, as a sign of gratitude for the fact that he started all this plastic surgery madness. Please, there would be a little misinformation here, but that’s why we come quickly and honestly to find out who this person is, what he did and what he wanted from life.

When he was born is not known for sure and, frankly, it doesn’t really matter. It is also not known what he did in the first part of his life. It is only known that he lived in the 16th century and that he died shortly before the 17th, namely in 1599. It is more than certain that he came from a wealthy family, that not every peasant could afford to practice medicine. I mean, it’s not that there aren’t enlightened ones among the lower classes, it’s just that it’s more difficult here with tuition fees, basic education and the like.

Gaspare went straight to the University of Bologna, where the best medical school in Europe was being built. The basics of the medical department are as follows as I told you another time, was laid by Mondino de Luzzi. From it began a thorough study, based primarily on direct observation, in practice, on autopsies, which, by the way, were prohibited for about 1700 years.

Cosmetic surgery was not a new branch of medicine: the ancient Egyptians already started doing it about 5000 years ago

Then, with the careful steps that a medical student had to go through to get into practice. Bologna at the time was the equivalent of Oxford, Harvard and the Sorbonne combined. As one example, one of the medical professors who taught Tagliacozzi the great Girolamo Cardano. We know that this man remained in history more for his contribution to mathematics, but no, he was a scholar, he was good at many sciences.

And look like this, so that no longer than necessary, Gaspare ended up as a professor of anatomy in Bologna, not even being 30 years old. And what he did there, without big words, made a revolution in medicine. More precisely, cosmetic surgery. We explain right away, but make a small detour to better understand what it is about.

Cosmetic surgery was not a new branch of medicine. Come to think of it, the ancient Egyptians started doing something like this about 5,000 years ago, and that’s enough to give you an idea.

And the first steps in this field were taken simultaneously with the first punishments of mutilation applied to convicts. For example, cut off the nose. Or rhinocopy, as the Greeks called it. It was actually a classic punishment for depravity, adultery, etc., followed by banishment. So many people lost their trunks that the Egyptians named the Gaza Strip Rhinocorura (Place of Severed Noses) and exiled them all there.

Apparently, at that time there were also people willing to fix their noses, at least to the extent that they could go out into the world without a mask on their faces. Later, in India, another region where nose cutting was widely practiced, a brilliant surgeon named Sushutra appeared who invented a technique for restoring severed noses. The highlight is that he also came from a low caste.

The family passed information from father to son and made their patients sign that they would not tell anyone the secrets of the operation and treatment.

In general, the Native American technique, developed about 2,700 years ago, required reconstructing the nose using a piece of skin from the patient’s forehead or cheek. You weren’t out of the box like you were in the beginning, but if you caught Sushutra on a good day, and you usually caught him not shooting at the table, he could do a good job without even noticing that you’d lost your badge of pride. And his technique “called Indian technique” is used to this day.

In this chain of history we also reach our Gaspare, who, between us, knew the work of Master Susutra, but he developed a new one. I’m sorry, to be scrupulous, he only raised it to a higher level, because he did not invent what has remained in the history of medicine called the “Italian method”. We will immediately detail. In short, the earliest references to this innovative nasal reconstruction technique appear about 100 years before Tagliacozzi. More precisely, to a Sicilian family of doctors, Branca is her name.

They passed information from father to son and made patients sign that they would not tell anyone the secrets of the operation and treatment. Apparently, the secret only lasted one generation. This is human nature. From the Branca family, he was transferred to the Vianeo family in order to get relatively quickly to the doctor Alessandro Benedetti, the same one who became famous locally for the way he restored severed noses. Independently through Bavaria, and also in that period, appears Heinrich von Pfalzpaint, a military doctor, a member of the Teutonic Order, who even left a medical book in which this so-called Italian technique appears.

The technique turned out to be so effective that it was used for centuries.

Finally, in the 16th century, the Bolognese physician Leonardo Fioravanti, a man who writes a work called “Il tesoro della vita humana”, enters the scene. In it, he describes the mentioned technique. Most likely, Gaspare got the idea from him that they are fellow citizens after all. Hello! Now let’s see what this innovative technique means

First, the skin is no longer collected from the forehead or cheek. It detaches from the patient’s hand, but does not detach completely. The arm was bent to the head, immobilized, and the skin was sewn on the nose. The patient sat like that, without moving his hand, for a long time. From three weeks to several months, until the skin is connected to everything that means in a new place. Secondly, her hand was cut off, and modeling of a new nose was in the final stages. The technique turned out to be so effective that it was used for centuries.

The merit of Tagliacozzi in the whole matter, as I have already shown, is not that he invented the procedure. No, he didn’t invent it, although many still say he did. It is to his credit that he took it to the schools, in a text-book of medicine which remained the text-book of the field for hundreds of years after him (De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem), and that he and his pupils practiced it until he took it to near perfection. As it emerged, he brought it out of the underground and raised it to the heights, turning it from the underground work of barber-surgeons into a high-precision medical technique.

It is obvious that rhinoplasty was only one of those improved by Gaspar. His experience covered many other similar methods and interventions. We insisted on rhinoplasty because it is the most famous. In any case, when this guy went into the world righteous, he was already a national hero. Even today, his monument stands on the throne at the University of Bologna. And if you decide to get cosmetic surgery today (we don’t want you to, but if you still insist), know that if it weren’t for Gaspare with the bases, you’d still be doing parts.

Bibliography:

• Santoni-Ruggio P., Mazzola R., 1997, Leonardo Fioravanti (1517-1588): a barber-surgeon who influenced the development of reconstructive surgery, Plast. Reconstruction Surgery, volume 99, pages 570-575

• Tomna P., Vigano A., Ruggieri P., Gasbarinni A., 2014, Gaspare Tagliacozzi, the pioneer of plastic surgery and the spread of his technique throughout Europe in “De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem”, European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, vol. 18 (4), pp. 445-450

• Whitaker IS, Karoo RO, Spyrou G., Fenton, OM, 2007, The Birth of Plastic Surgery: The Story of Nasal Reconstruction from the Edwin Smith Papyrus to the Twenty-Five Century, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, volume 120(1) . ), p. 327–336