Blepharoplasty and the H.M.S. Warspite are two things you may never have heard of. In case you haven’t, here are the facts:

Blepharoplasty is better known as eyelid lift, and is both a cosmetic and a reconstructive procedure designed to improve or restore the appearance of the patient’s eyes.

The Warspite was a British battleship, launched in 1913.

On the surface, these appear to have nothing to do with each other, but in fact, a courageous young sailor aboard the Warspite became the first patient in history to undergo an eyelid procedure.

On 31 May 1916, a 26-year-old sailor named Walter Yeo was a gunnery officer aboard the Warspite when warships of the Royal Navy encountered a fleet of the Imperial German Kriegsmarine off the coast of Denmark. Over the course of the indecisive 13-hour sea-battle (in which over 8500 men lost their lives), the Warspite took several major hits, sustaining tremendous damage. One German shell hit Yeo’s station; although he survived, Yeo sustained horrible facial burns that cost him his eyelids.

Military doctors had never seen these types of injuries before. One such doctor, Sir Harold Gillies, opened an entirely new ward in Queen Mary’s Hospital in Kent specifically for the treatment of facial injuries. When Yeo arrived over a year after the battle in which he was injured, he became the first patient to undergo a new technique devised by Dr. Gillies. Known as the tubed pedical procedure, it involved removal of healthy, undamaged skin from one part of a patient’s body and grafting it over an injured area.

Although Yeo would remain disfigured for life, this early blepharoplasty procedure succeeded in restoring functional eyelids. English artist Paddy Hartley, who has created an exhibition at London’s National Army Museum called Faces of Battle, notes that the tragedy of the First World War catalyzed the surgeon to transform the fledgling discipline of plastic surgery.

According to an August 2008 story in the UK Telegraph, Gillies and his colleagues went on to perform more than 11,000 plastic surgeries on some 5,000 men over the subsequent years.

Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have said, If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants. The surgeons of Premier Plastic Surgery of Kansas City would similarly like to acknowledge innovators such as Sir Dr. Gillies and the brave men upon which he and his colleagues were able to practice and refine their techniques making modern procedures such as blepharoplasty possible today.

If you are in the Kansas City area, call for a consulation with a Kansas City Cosmetic Surgeon.