To fully understand how ancient plastic surgery is one need only look to the root of its meaning.
The term plastic surgery has nothing to do with plastic. In fact, it comes from the Greek word plastikos, which means to mold. And plastic surgery is just that: the molding of human tissue.
The word came along long before the plastic industry, says Darrick Antell, an assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and the only plastic surgeon to have his work on display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History for his studies on aging in identical twins.
Initially, says Antell, people looked down on plastic surgery because they thought surgeons were interfering with God’s work. Even reconstructive surgery, such as fixing a cleft lip or cleft palate, was questionable.
“Plastic surgeons of the day were considered castouts for ...
