John Watson RIP

Kyt · Feb 19, 2009

John Watson - Telegraph

John Watson, who died on January 14 aged 94, was one of Britain's pre-eminent plastic surgeons, whose pioneering contributions to his field helped alleviate the suffering of victims of terrible burns injuries, including pilots shot down during the Second World War.

Watson specialised in reconstructive surgery rather than cosmetic or aesthetic cases. His patients included accident and fire victims, as well as those requiring plastic surgery on post-operative wounds, and children with cleft palates.

He had trained under Sir Archibald McIndoe at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and performed follow-up operations on many of McIndoe's so-called "guinea pigs" – wartime aircrew whose burns injuries were treated with entirely new and untested techniques.

After watching McIndoe skilfully cutting large sheets of thin skin shavings suitable for grafting, Watson designed a user-friendly skin graft knife that enabled him and other disciples to do the same. Watson got the idea for his design for this new tool while peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink.

A man of multiple talents, Watson was also an accomplished astronomer who engaged to a professional level in the highly precise observational technique of photoelectric photometry.

John Watson was born on September 10 1914 in Liverpool. His father, a solicitor, died when he was 18 months old, and when his mother remarried she moved the family to Sussex, where she became the first woman mayor of Hastings.

From Leighton Park school, Reading, John Watson went up to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read Medicine. In 1932, when he was 18, he constructed an apparatus with which he was able to receive one of Logie Baird's original television broadcasts, a feat that was reported in The Times. He qualified from Cambridge, and, in 1939, from Guy's Hospital.

When war was declared, he joined the volunteer reserve of the Royal Air Force and was commissioned in 1940. Promoted to flight lieutenant in 1941 and squadron leader in 1942, Watson spent much of his early service at various RAF stations in Scotland. In 1944 he was posted to India and thence to Malaysia and Burma, where he worked as a medical officer.

In Asia, damaged Allied aircraft trying to make it to home bases frequently crashed in desolate mountain areas, and Watson would hire a local guide to row him, lying in a sampan, up river to bury airmen. He collected any personal belongings and marked their graves with bent bamboo spikes to thwart marauding jackals.

Demobilised in 1945, he returned to England determined to pursue a career in surgery. But it was an ambition shared by many other ex-servicemen at a time when relevant training posts were, accordingly, in short supply. Not surprisingly, those who had served in Europe and who had been demobilised earlier were at some advantage in the quest for such placements.

Watson did, however, find a place on a course at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, qualifying as a Fellow in 1947. This led to a post as resident surgical officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham, where he was assistant to the surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright.

In private practice Dickson Wright shared an anaesthetist, John Hunter, with Archibald McIndoe, and it was through this connection that an opportunity arose to train in plastic surgery under McIndoe.

On completion of his training, Watson was appointed to the consultant staff of the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and later to the London and Florence Nightingale Hospitals, with an honorary consultancy to the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers.

But it was as secretary (later president) of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, secretary-general of the International Confederation of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons and secretary of the East Grinstead Medical Research Trust that he made his most notable contributions to medicine.

It was in these posts, in the early 1960s, that he masterminded the planning, commissioning and construction of what was the most advanced facility in Britain for the treatment of burns injuries, now the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation. As the trust's éminence grise, he oversaw the rise of its laboratories to international recognition in the fields of transplantation immunology – tissue typing for the early heart transplants, for example – and the birth of micro-vascular surgery, in which severed body parts such as hands, fingers and toes are reattached. His work was recognised by a Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

He wrote numerous articles on plastic surgery for various medical journals and contributed chapters on his discipline to several textbooks.

Away from his surgical work Watson became an expert beekeeper, built his own orchid house and constructed his own 10in reflecting telescope, grinding and polishing its lenses, mounting the instrument in his own observatory and, using his knowledge of computers and circuitry, introducing a system of automation of his own design and manufacture.

On the basis of his calculations, an astronomy textbook had to be altered when Watson demonstrated that measurements in relation to one heavenly body were incorrect.

John Watson married, in 1941, June Stiles, whom he met when she was a wartime WAAF officer. She died in July last year, and their three daughters survive him.
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 17, 2009

Am embarrassed to say I missed this post. It looks like it was during my three week sojourn.

A fine and talented man. RIP.

Heidi · Mar 17, 2009

I think i know who you are talking about Kitty. I once saw a program on British reconstrutcions (think wrong spelling sorry) on burn pilot's faces during world war 2.
Was his actions the first Plastic surgery ever? I am not sure, but i thought he was the first!
For the time the program mentions that he did a wounderful job in making the pilot's faces as normal as possible.
Think it's the same person.

Rest In Peace- John Watson.

Antipodean Andy · Mar 17, 2009

Heidi, with respect to Dr Watson, I think the show would have been about Sir Archiblad McIndoe who is regarded as the pioneer of reconstructive surgery with relation to burns. It wasn't the first plastic surgery performed but his work extended beyond the actual surgery and included advances in initial treatment and the reconstruction of the man "inside" so his return to society and life was as seamless as possible.

Here's a few Wiki entries you might find of interest and to get you started:

Archibald McIndoe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guinea Pig Club - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There's plenty on the net on the subject plus there are some very good books as well. Probably the most famous is by a Guinea Pig himself - Richard Hillary's The Last Enemy. Geoffrey Page wrote what is now published as Shot Down in Flames and Dr ER Mayhew has written the excellent The Reconstruction of Warriors. There's also a number of other books by Guinea Pigs and several biographies on McIndoe himself.

Interestingly, of the four "bosses" of the four RAF burns treatment units, three were Kiwis!

Heidi · Mar 18, 2009

Yaks!:heh:oster_oops:.That's a bit embarrassment to my face. Right,thanks i am going to go and read now.

Antipodean Andy · Mar 18, 2009

Heidi, I fail to see how it's embarrassing to you. You weren't sure and I've guessed as to the subject of the show you watched. I might be wrong with my guess. Enjoy your reading. McIndoe and his doctors achieved remarkable things.

Dr Watson appears to have started in plastic surgery proper after the war so if you watched a show about reconstructie surgery during the war then it most likely would have been about McIndoe.

Heidi · Mar 18, 2009

Oh,right i never saw it in that way. No, i think you could be right on this.
I'm sure ,i will enjoy the input i just received.

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