NEWS

ROLLS ROYCE DENTIST FACILITATED WARTIME

What is your Plan B? Email the Assistant Editor, Laura The cover of this issue is artist was ideal Pacey, on [email protected], with details of what Philip Banister’s impression of a for trans- ©IWM you are doing now and what your Plan B would be if photograph of Major Sir Auguste ferring you hadn't chosen dentistry! Charles Valadier in the Special patients Jaw Ward at No. 13 Stationary from ambu- the day. I was tempted to study in Dublin, following Hospital in Wimereux, France. lance trains my mother’s footsteps, and study in the country of my Born in Paris in 1873, Valadier’s to hospital birth; however, cross-border transport was regularly family emigrated to America ships bound for disrupted by the Irish troubles, making it less attractive. in 1876. He studied medicine England. In May So Belfast it was. at the University of Columbia, 1917 the hospital was renamed I never saw myself in an academic position with an and qualified as a dentist from the 83rd Dublin General Hospital administrative role and certainly not in ; but here the Philadelphia Dental College and moved nearer the town of I am with a personal chair at King’s College London. Not in 1901. At the outbreak of war Wimereux. Valadier provided sure I would have had quite such an interesting career as Valadier was practising at a the equipment and laboratory a hairdresser! fashionable practice in Paris. He technicians for the hospital unit at volunteered his services to the Wimereux with funds derived from Sara Holmes MBE, Professor British Red Cross Society and was his wealthy practice in Paris. of Dental Education and Director dispatched to Abbeville, France. By May 1917 Valadier and of the University of Portsmouth From there he found the British his staff had treated more than Dental Academy setting up a field headquarters 1,000 cases of jaw and facial I never actually had a Plan B. From around Boulogne. On 16 October injuries reporting only 27 deaths. my earliest days in school when I 1914 Valadier was assigned to It was here he developed treat- modelled a mouth out of clay whilst No. 13 General Hospital, BEF, ment techniques to deal with the other children were making pots and Boulogne-sur-Mer, a base hospi- problems of facial wounds. He ashtrays, I knew I wanted to be a dental nurse. tal. He arrived at headquarters in advocated early primary closure I have asked myself what I would do if I left dental a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce of wounds and retention of teeth; education tomorrow and, having first filled my days with which he used to carry all his even those in the fracture line. shopping and champagne, the shortlist is quite long. It dental equipment. Gangrene was combated with includes: running a small cinema (the kind that has sofas, Valadier recognised that bul- frequent irrigations and of sterile foot stools, blankets and a bar); a small cottage business let wounds to the face and jaws water under pressure. making cheese and bread; a business selling wall paper, needed special treatment. He Other military saw fabrics and up-cycled chairs, I have a mad obsession with established a face and jaw unit at Valadier’s work and were inspired chairs!; and a commercial beehive/honey business. It’s the No. 13 Stationary Hospital in a to follow. Among them was really more a list of the things I love rather than a sen- converted sugar store. Its location Captain Harold Gillies, the ENT sible Plan B. I think my husband is probably very happy chosen to assist Valadier

that I love my job! ©IWM in the operating theatre. Sir Harold Gillies wrote about Laura Horton, Owner, Horton Valadier in 1957: ‘In Boulogne Consulting and qualified there was a great fat man with dental nurse sandy hair and a florid face, who As a young girl I was a bit of a had equipped his Rolls Royce free spir