The African and Plastic Surgery

Experience with and treatment of Africans in need of reconstructive surgery, including a number of cases at the Salisbury African hospital in the last two and a half years, indicates the need for Africans generally to be made aware of the possibility of repair of congenital deformity, trauma and the effects of disease. There is a great need to educate the African, particularly in the more remote districts, to seek early treatment in the case of burns, one of the most common types of injury requiring repair and one in which delay carries with it the possibility of irreparable injury in some cases, and difficulty of treatment in all cases. There are also many cases in which it has been found that an African has suffered for years from some congenital deformity, or effects of disease, which could have been repaired sooner had he been aware of that possibility.

A CAJM article on reconstructive plastic surgery to Africans in the 1950's.