The caption to the photo said, “New York plastic surgeon Jacob Sarnoff drew this vision of total transformation–entitled ‘diagrammatic illustration of common deformities amenable to plastic surgery’–in 1936.”
I found this in Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery, by Elizabeth Haiken (1997), page 13.
Comments 1
Lisa — February 27, 2008
I just finished reading Blum's Flesh Wounds, also about cosmetic surgery. I liked, especially, the first few chapters (before it gets psychoanalytic, which is not my cup of tea). With that book in mind, what I think is really interesting about this picture is that it's fantasy... especially in 1936. But because it can be drawn (or today photographed and photoshopped) and because we are so used to believing images, it seems real to us. Because the doctors say that such transformation is possible, it must in fact be. What is made invisible in this is the fact that the outcome of any surgery is unknown and unknowable.
Plastic surgeons, according to Blum, know full well that showing a patient a picture of what she will look like after the surgery only threatens to create dissatisfaction with the actual result.