15. Premodern cosmetic surgeries and alterations, including the injection of paraffin wax, routinely proved fatal for patients who underwent said procedures.
The earliest known cosmetic surgery, the “Edwin Smith Papyrus”, from Ancient Egypt dated 3000-2500 BCE, records the reconstructive repair of a broken nose. These procedures reached India by 800 BCE and Rome by the 1st century BCE, whereupon the field of plastic surgery gradually developed over the next two thousand years. The first recorded cosmetic surgeries took place in 16th century Europe, with so-called “barber-surgeons” in Tudor England treating damaged or disfigured faces with varying degrees of success. Of particular note, Heinrich von Pfloseudnt is credited with the creation of a method for grafting skin from the back of the arm to create a new nose in the 15th century.
With the refinement of anesthesia during the 19th-century, plastic surgeries increased in both frequency and appeal. Advertised in popular magazines as treatments for “humped, depressed, or ill-shaped noses” and “the finger marks of Time”, perhaps most notorious of these cosmetic introductions was an early form of artificial enhancements. Achieved through the use of paraffin wax, with the stated purposes of concealing wrinkles, breast augmentation, or nose alterations, hot liquid wax was injected into the patient and then “molded by the operator into the desired shape” whilst still warm. However, upon hardening the wax habitually grew into intensely painful deposits and could migrate through the body to other areas causing severe disfigurement or even fatal cancerous blockages.