Did modern plastic surgery begin with an Indian potter?

Transcript

And Indian Porter is the reason why all these celebrities can have such noses. You must have heard how plastic surgery began in India. About Shushut from your class textbooks and even about Lord Ganesha's elephant head. But what if I told you that modern plastic surgery, the kind used in hospital today, also began in India. And it all started, not in some royal palace or lab, but with a bullock cart driver named Kawasji. In 1792, during the 3rd Anglo-Maisurwar, Kawasji was captured by Tipu Sultan and as punishment had his nose cut off. For a year, he lived without it until a British officer saw a man walking with a perfectly reconstructed nose. Curious he asked how. The answer and Indian Porter using a secret family technique passed down for generation. And so this Porter was called in to operate on Kawasji, right there in Pune. K.C. used a forehead flap, a method similar to Shushut Samhita and ancient Sanskrit text from the 600 BC. And while all this happened, two British doctors watched it and wrote about it in the Gentleman's magazine in 1794. And it was known as the Singular Operation. And it is said that this article was the moment Indian surgical knowledge entered European medicine. Fast forward to 1814, British surgeon J.C. Kapu read those writings and performed the first modern rhinoplasty in England using the Indian technique. And it worked. And he also published about it and the technique spread. And while surgeons like Harold Gilles would later refine facial reconstructions for wartime injuries, it was that Indian nurse jobs in Pune that truly laid the foundation of modern rhinoplasty and also plastic surgery. And that is how...

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.