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Dr. Maurice Coelst: the struggle of a Belgian plastic surgeon “before the term existed”

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Notes

  1. Société Royale Belge de Chirurgie (1893–1993) Koninklijk Belgisch Genootschap voor Heelkunde . Editorial R. Van Hee-P.Mendes da Costa, 1993 Universa Press Wetteren,

  2. Gillies was influenced by the work of Morestin, whom he had once visited in the Val-de-Grâce hospital in 1915. Gillies was to say of this meeting: “In the space of a single moment he could reveal the gentleness of a kitten and the savagery of a tiger”. In 1917, he set up his own centre in the UK at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, where he was to establish a famous centre for British and Allied war wounded in WW2. Many renowned plastic surgeons were trained there. Gillies was named the “father of modern plastic surgery”. He was knighted in 1930

  3. Archibald McIndoe was Senior Plastic Surgeon to the Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital in East Grinstead. He was knighted in 1946

  4. R. Mowlem was Senior Plastic Surgeon to the Hill End Hospital in St Albans

  5. T. Pomfret Kilner was Nuffield Professor of Plastic Surgery in Oxford

  6. In 2003, the 72th annual congress of the “American Society of Plastic Surgery” was held in San Diego (California)

  7. In 2003 a most interesting facsimile of this book is published, introduced by Prof. Dr. J. C. van der Meulen [7]

  8. Philippe Pétain (1856–1951), field marshal and hero of WW1 was set the task by President Lebrun of forming a government after the Battle of the Marne. He was increasingly compromised as part of the Vichy administration during WW2. After the war, he was sentenced to death, but General De Gaulle commuted his sentence to life in prison

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Acknowledgements

A word of thanks must go to my tutor, Professor Matton, for casting a critical eye over this historical study and for his many suggestions. I would also like to thank Barend Haeseker for allowing me to peruse the original correspondence between Coelst and Esser. It is a unique set of documents. I must also thank Philippe Coelst, Maurice Coelst’s youngest son, for his enthusiastic co-operation on this historical study and for providing me with a number of unique documents. Also a word of thanks for Riccardo Mazzola, who provided me with yet more unique documents from his world-famous library. And a big thanks to my sister, Monique Wylock, for her critical comments and the fluency of her pen.

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  1. Academic Hospital, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan, 101, 1090, Brussel, Belgium

    Paul Wylock

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Correspondence to Paul Wylock.

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Wylock, P. Dr. Maurice Coelst: the struggle of a Belgian plastic surgeon “before the term existed”. Eur J Plast Surg 28, 131–139 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00238-005-0726-2

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