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Show SCULPTOR MAKES NEW FACES FOR WOUNDED MEN Copper Masks Are Molded by Francis Derwent Wood, a British Officer. REMARKABLE FACIAL SURGERY Many Pathetic Cases Fall to Care of Celebrated Artist Spends Months In Experiments Before At-temping At-temping His First Case New Eye for Soldiers. i London. Not "new lamps for old," but "new faces for old," Is the cry of the modern Arabian Nights magician. This magician is a sculptor of renown, English by birth but half American by ancestry. He is Francis Derwent Wood, a name familiar in the United States, where various collectors possess examples of his work. Wood's steadily growing fame, however, was extended In America Amer-ica just before the war began, when le was commissioned by Lady Paget and the duchess of Marlborough on behalf be-half of the American women in England Eng-land to execute the statue of William Pitt, which, as soon as circumstances make the thing more suitable, will be presented by them to their native land In commemoration of the hundred years of peace between this country ind America. Lieutenant Wood, as he now is, has Jlscovered how to give new faces to men who have lost theirs in the war. He can make new eyes, cheeks, foreheads, fore-heads, chins; in fact, he is making them daily. Up to date Derwent Wood has made new faces, or at least parts of faces, for five such victims of war. Remarkable Facial Surgery. The most pathetic case of all of these was that of a trooper named Everitt, whose face had been broken by an explosive bullet. His nose had been carried away almost entirely and his left cheek torn open from his ear to the corner of his mouth. Like most of these victims of facial disfigurement, disfigure-ment, he had to undergo operation after operation. He received his wound on May 13 of last year. Finally he was brought to a London hospital on September Sep-tember 2, and up to a couple of weeks ago, despite the fact that his wound had entirely healed and surgery admittedly ad-mittedly had done all that it could for him, he remained a sad s3ht. Before the war he "Bio a tax! driver. Now, made at least presentable by the wonderful "facial mask" which Wood has contrived for him, a mask consisting consist-ing of false nose, cheek and a "mustache" "mus-tache" which conceala his injured lip, ex-Trooper Everitt is plying his old trade again and doing well at it. "When he saw himself with his mask .'or the first time," said the sculptor, "he jumped for joy." New Eye for Soldiers. Another case In which Wood has salved human wreckage Is that of Driver Fergusson, a member of the Canadian Ca-nadian field artillery, who was hideously hide-ously wounded at Ypres on April 25, 19115. A piece of shell carried away his right eye entirely, and as the surgical report professionally put it, "the sur-rouiding sur-rouiding structures." In the ordinary way there would have been nothing to fix b-j artificial eye "to," and, as in the case of Trooper Everitt, his disfigurement disfigure-ment was so appalling to behold that it Is doubtful of he ever could have taken up his old trade, which was that of a machinist. Now with the upper part of his right cheek restored, and what appear to be two perfectly good eyes beaming at you from behind spectacles, this youngster not only will be able to earn his living hereafter, but is going to get married, and the gratitude of his fiancee fian-cee to Derwent Wood is only surpassed by his own. These are the two worst cases with which the sculptor has yet had to deal, but others in which he has been equally equal-ly successful are those of Private Harper Har-per of the King's Royal rifles, who also lost most of his nose and the biggest part of his cheekbone; Lance Corporal Davis of the Australian imperial forces, who was minus an eye and part of liis cheek, aud a British private, whose left cheek and nose were frightfully fright-fully torn by a shrapnel bullet. All these men will now be able to follow their own trades, instead of having to exist, shunned by all save the most stoical of their follows, on the princely prince-ly pension of 25 shillings ($6) a week, which is all that their country can afford af-ford to pay in cases of "total incapacity." inca-pacity." Wood's War Service. Soon after the beginning of the war Col. Bruce Porter of the Royal Army Medical corps made a speech to the members of the Chelsea Arts club, of which Derwent Wood is a member. The colonel asked his hearers to make a sacrifice of their art, and if they were too old to fight to accept the lowest service in the ranks of the R. A. M. C. A goodly number of the Chelsea artists enlisted in the R. A. M. C. forthwith, and among them was Derwent Wood. At forty-four he is not available for active service. His father came from Harrisburg, Pa., married an Englishwoman English-woman and settled down at Keswick, in Cumberland, where Derwent Wood was born. He began his artistic career at Karlsruhe, later returning to England, and becoming a student at the Royal academy. There he won the gold medal and the traveling scholarship, which took him for some time to Italy. ,He afterward became assistant to Thomas Brock, R. A., one of the most famous of British sculptors. Honors were awarded him at the Paris salpu and four years ago he was made an associate of the Royal academy. Examples Ex-amples of his statuary are in the possession pos-session of Henry Phipps, of his son, J. Phipps of Westbury, L. I., and several sev-eral other well-known American collectors. col-lectors. Moved to Aid Wounded. Having joined the R. A. M. C. as an ordinary private Wood was sent out to a London military hospital. It is one of the biggest in the metropolis, with more than 1,500 beds. At the beginning begin-ning the new orderly's duties were not of an exalted nature, one of them being be-ing to assist in rolling a new asphalt path. In a few days, however, the sculptor was drafted into the wards, where he began by taking plaster casts of damaged limbs. He soon became a master of splints. And in the course of his work he saw the saddest sights of the war, the men with the mutilated muti-lated faces. Moved to intense compassion, Derwent Der-went Wood went to his colonel one day and said: "Let mt see what I can do for these poor fellows. I believe that I can do something anyway." The officer consented gladly. "1 spent months in experiments," said Wood, "before 1 undertook my first case. This was In December last, my patient being Trooper Everitt. My 'masks,' as we call them, consist of plates of thin copper, silvered and then painted to match the hue of the patient's pa-tient's skin. They are light to wear, they fit like gloves and the men declare de-clare that they give no discomfort whatever. Yes, they are intended to be removed at night, exactly like a set of false teeth, and they are easily cleaned with a littlb potato juice Most of them can be kept in place by means of 'ether gum,' such as actors use, but in cases of artificial eyes and noses, I prefer to 'build' them on to spectacles, which assist to keep them in place and which themselves are held firm by means of a couple of small straps at the back. Plaster Mold Made. "In the beginning a plaster mold of the face is secured. This is dried and a clay or plasticine 'squeeze' is obtained ob-tained from the mold, giving a positive model of the patient's dressed wound and the surrounding healthy tissues; this is fixed to a board on a modeling stand and a sitting from the patient with the undressed wound is obtained. "Having completed my model I proceed pro-ceed to cast it. and procure the plaster positive of the wound and its surrounding sur-rounding structures. Another sitting is had and the portions which are to be hidden eventually by the metal plate are modeled in clay or wax, the edges being blended to the uninjured portions of the face, thus effectively masking any trace of wounds. This is onc-6 more molded in plaster, and the edge of the proposed plate being marked on the negative, a cast is ob-j ob-j tained. edges are trimmed to marking and the model is ready to have the artificial ar-tificial eye fitted to the lids. "The plaster eyeball is dug out, the reouisite thickness of lids is carefully worked down, the glass eye placed in position and the edges of the lids made good with thin plaster. The model Is then taken to the electrotyper, where aa exact reproduction by galvano-plastic galvano-plastic deposit is made in thin virgin copper. The final sittings are devotod to the pigmentation of the plate. "I have found a thin coating ol cream-colored bath enamel a good preparation for flesh color matching. Should the patient have a shiny skin this Is easily obtained by varnish rubbed down to match it. I have tried false hair on eyelids and eyebrows thiy will not stand the weather and have adopted tinfoil split with scissors and soldered into lids for the eye, and for the eyebrows pigment applied to the modeled forms." Lieutenant Wood declared that the American made artificial limbs were by far the best In the world, and spoke admiringly of the work that is being done at Roehampton by Americans In the way of equipping armless and legless leg-less soldiers. |