Until the First World War (1914-1918), most battle injuries were caused by small arms fire or sword cuts.
Facial injuries were often of little concern to survivors who were deemed lucky enough to have escaped with their lives.
Weapons used during the First World War like heavy artillery, machine guns and poison gas, created injuries of a severity and scale unseen before.
The circumstances of trench warfare, with men peering over parapets, caused a dramatic rise in the number of facial injuries sustained by soldiers.
Shells filled with shrapnel were to blame for many of these facial and head wounds, as they were specifically designed to cause maximum damage.
Hot flying metal could tear through flesh to create twisted, ragged wounds or even rip faces off entirely.
A pioneering surgeon
Harold Gillies was a New Zealand surgeon who had trained in England. Posted to France in 1915, he witnessed the rise in horrific facial wounds inflicted by this new style of warfare.
On his return to England, Gillies set up a special ward for facial wounds at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot.
Gillies knew that healthy tissue needed to be moved back to its normal position. After this, any gaps could be filled with tissue from elsewhere on the body.
By 1916, Gillies had persuaded his medical chiefs that a dedicated hospital for facial injuries was required to meet the demand.
The aim of The Queen’s Hospital was to reconstruct wounded men’s faces as fully as possible, so that they could hopefully lead a normal life.
The legacy of war’s injuries
Back in August 2003, the BBC reported how Iraqi civilians received treatment for burns at British hospitals at a cost of £20m, as the report below explained.
The government has given the cash to specialist NHS units at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, Wythenshawe hospital in Manchester and the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.
Iraqi civilians have already received treatment in the UK with one woman presently recovering at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.
The extra funding over two years is to stop extra pressure at the three units which could have meant local people being turned away.
The British government also needs to honour its Geneva Convention responsibilities for civilians under its control in southern Iraq.
The convention says any occupying force has to ensure civilians get any medical treatment they need.
Len Fenwick, chief executive of Newcastle NHS Hospitals Trust, said:
“We are dealing with a special client group, to give good quality care and treatment.
"We are an occupying power and under international conventions we have a duty of care to these patients.”
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