A.E. Rauer (on the 125th anniversary of his birth)

March 28, 1996 was the 125th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Eduardovich Rauer, a man who operated on the face, restoring an image disfigured by war. A bloody mask instead of a face, a gaping wound instead of a nose, splinters of bones and teeth sticking out instead of jaws, mooing instead of speech - all this was horrifying and repulsive. All this is the face of war. We know from the history of past world wars how terrible the fate of those who were wounded in the face was. The orderlies sometimes left such wounded on the battlefield, considering them doomed to death. Bitter was the fate of those who were brought to hospitals: they could not drink, feed and nurse them. They died not from wounds, but from exhaustion. The survivors were doomed to wear a white mask on their face, hiding the face with the stigma of war under it. There were few surgeons who tried to perform reconstructive surgeries. Plastic surgery as an independent branch of medicine at the beginning of the century were making their first steps Wounded in the face were afraid to leave the walls of hospitals, afraid to appear in human society. The stigma of war deprived them of the joy of being, communication and family.