What does Plastic Surgery have to do with the Civil War?

this New York City doctor. His name's Jack Birdie, and he's also this poker player, and he realized the biggest problem for poker players is their tells, like people who like far with their brows or curl their lips as they're trying to bluff, and so he basically came up with a few places to administer botox so you don't show your hand as much. Now, I'm guessing this is just for humans or can you know those dogs that

play poker? Can they also get this treatment? I love the idea of like a sharpay or one of those like super wrinkly dogs just getting all smoothed out, because the boats I feel like it will take so many years off the dog. But hearing about Poker Talks treatments really made us wonder, like, what the history of these cosmetic procedures. How long have people have been getting those jobs and why was the Civil War such a turning point for plastic surgery. So let's dive in their podcast. Listeners,

Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass. Really feeling that burn because he's doing his daily set of Facer sizes. I don't know if you've noticed this man, he's been doing them all week. I didn't. Well, that is our

friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now. Tristan claims these exercises are a viable alternative to plastic surgery, something about how like toning your face muscles can make you look younger. So good luck to you, Tristan. You already pretty young looking. But you know, we'll see if this makes a difference. And honestly, from here, it mostly looks like he's just kind of smushing his cheeks and making this little turtle face. It's kind of I wish everybody could see this. It's

a little weird. Yeah, So he was trying to explain this to me earlier. He's been doing this old nineties exercise routine that's supposed to tighten facial muscles, and he said it's called cheek energizing, and supposedly as part of this whole face of size program that this doctor named Carol Maggio developed like thirty years ago. It all sounds and looks pretty bizarre, and I'm mostly just impressed that

Tristan was able to decode the written instructions. So I actually looked this up and this is a breakdown to the cheek energizer move he's been doing. Quote, place an index finger lightly on the top of each cheek. Now, smile with the middle of your upper lip while thinking about the expression you pulling the top lip flat against your teeth. Keep your upper and lower lips firmly pulling away from each other, and feel your cheeks move under

your index fingers. Repeat this, smile and release. I mean, none of this makes any sense to me. Trying it feels, it feels weird. I don't know the middle of your lip, Okay. What's strange is that if we wanted, we can actually, like ask the inventor herself about how to do this. At age seventy three, she actually promotes facer size on Skype, and you can do a skype session with her and

she'll walk you through it face to face. I am totally going to do this manga that she sounds weird enough for me to want to do it, and it does seem like could be a pretty surreal experience. But as proponents of plastic surgery will tell you, most improvements from facial exercise just don't hold a candle to the results you get from a shot of botox or maybe

a half hour under the knife. And when you think about it, that relative ease and the immediacy of the results, it's what makes cosmetic procedures so appealing in the first place. For instance, in two thousand seventeen alone, fifteen point seven million minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed in the US, So we're talking about things like botox injections, chemical peels, laser hair removals. That's almost two increase since the year

two thousand. Obviously, big reason for that growth is that cosmetic procedures have become easier, less invasive, you know, than they were in the years past. But millions of people are lining up each year to have parts of their bodies nipped and tucked and shaped and plumped, but you know, whether or not that's a good thing is still kind

of up in the air for many people. And so with that question of mind, we've got to be interesting to look into the history of plastic surgery, including how and why it got started and many of the ways it's changed over the years. And then a little bit later in the episode, I think we'll check out some of the more recent trends in the industry, as well as how a selfie stick might make you think twice

about getting a nose job. That's right, But you know, before we get into any of that, I thought we could start by breaking down some of the terms will be using today, you know, just so things don't get confusing a little bit later. So in general, we refer to the term plastic surgery for a few for things

at once. You know, they're cosmetic surgeries, which are the ones meant to enhance a person's overall appearance and aren't considered medically necessary, so things like liposuction or or facelifts, as well as the less invasive procedures you mentioned, like chemical peels and botox. But plastic surgery can also refer to reconstructive surgeries and those are the ones performed to restore the normal function or appearance of a person's body,

and for the most part, these are considered medically necessary. Yeah, I mean there are several of these types. When you think about surgeries like you know, repairing a cleft palate, or the unbelievable jobs that the surgeons can do when they're reconstructing a burn victim's face or their body, it's

pretty remarkable how far this has come. Yeah, and I did think it was worth mentioning because there's still a ton of stigma surrounding the term, Like lots of people only associate plastic surgery with the cosmetic side of things like tummy toks and calf implants. Yeah. Well, and my guess is that the stigma has a lot to do with the word plastic itself. I mean, I think it makes people think about fakeness, artificiality, and all the other

things we associate with plastic as a substance. Like we wrap our view of plastic as being cheap and disposable onto these surgeries that share this name, which of course is pretty unfair when you really think about it. Yeah, I mean, especially when you consider that the name doesn't have anything to do with plastic in the first place.

Like I read this week that the first time the word plastic was actually used to describe a surgical technique was an eighteen thirty seven, which is so long before plastic the substance was even invented, all right, So then what did the term actually mean when it was used in eighteen thirty seven. It actually came from the Greek word plastic coast, which means to mold or give form.

So a plastic surgery was basically a shaping surgery, and that was pretty fitting because the earliest forms of plastic surgery were based much more in reconstruction than they were purely cosmetic changes. You know, it's interesting. This is another one of those things that when we started looking into the history, you really don't think about how far back

some of these things go. And so actually the earliest known example of plastic surgery dates all the way back to the sixth century BC, and it was indeed a form of reconstruction. This was a nose job. The technique was invented in ancient India by a physician and a surgeon named sush Ruta. And this was at the time when you know it was common to punish an adulterer or a thief with some form of body mutilation, usually

by cutting off the nose or maybe an ear. And so this physician was one of many in the region who felt that this was kind of public shaming and it was just way over the line, of course, and you know, basically ensured that the criminals would be shunned for the rest of their lives. So we wanted to do something to help solve this problem, and so we began looking for a way to help these people reintegrate into society by restoring their appearance as much as he

possibly could. And so what he came up with was this technique where a flap of skin was removed from a patient's cheek and then molded and shaped into a new nose. And so he warm the nostrils by inserting these two hollow reads and then you leave them in place to make sure the nostrils didn't close up as the new nose healed. I mean, it's unbelievable that somebody could pull this off that long ago. Yeah, and it

almost sounds like fantastical to anything like that could even work. Yeah, it seems to have been the consensus at the time too. But you know, once word of this method spread, other Indian surgeons began trying it for themselves, and some even put their own spin on the procedure by building the replacement nose from a flap of the patient's forehead skin

rather than you know, maybe their cheek. And this early form of rhinoplasty proved so successful that it was eventually adapted throughout Europe, where it became known as the Indian method. So I had actually heard about this Indian method just because it's one of those things I feel is compulsory if you're Indian, like for Indian pride, Like, uh, you know, India also came up with the concept of zero as a number and invented shampoo. Like these are just things

and you're welcome. But uh, apparently we weren't the only innovators there. There's also something called the Italian method, and this was invented by a surgeon named Antonio Bronca. This was in early four hundreds and the big difference was that Branco used a flap of skin from the upper arm to build his patient's new noses, and this was considered an improvement for the most part because it left

a lot less scarring than Indian method did. The only downside was that, and this is a little strange to think about, in order for the skin to fully attach itself, patients actually to hold their arms against their nose for like twenty straight days. Obviously seems super uncomfortable. It does sound miserable, but I guess in these cases, you know, considering the results for the payoff, I guess it was considered worth it. But let's get back to Sushruta for

a minute. Because after his breakthrough, this plastic surgery continued to develop throughout Europe. So, for example, ancient Rome got in on the act sometime during the early first century, so surgeons of the Arab pioneered bluffero plastic, which is the adjustment of the eyelids in order to correct drooping or squinting eyes. And around the same time, the Greek physician Galen performed the very first purely cosmetic plastic surgery. So it's kind of like a nose job for the wealthy.

It's kind of cool that nose jobs were like first, both for reconstructive and cosmetic purposes. Is it's kind of stunning, But you know, not everyone was happy about those breakthroughs

embody modification. As Christianity began to take hold in Europe during the Middle Ages, plenty of religious leaders viewed plastic surgery as sinful or almost borderlined blasphemous, and this belief gained more traction in the twelfth century when the Pope I think it's Pope Innocent, the third at the time, he formally spoke out against it, and pretty soon after it became a crime to surgically alter the human body. So you see, this kind of thing happened throughout history,

but in this case, like what changed that perception? What what made the church eventually backed down from this. This is gonna sound strange, but a lot of the shift was due to syphilis. Really, you know that there were a lot of things I was guessing about. Is not what I expected you to say, though, I know. So there was a really bad outbreak of this disease in Europe during the late sixteenth century, and one of the symptoms of advance syphilis happens to be soft tissue, to

which is usually centered in the nose. I had no idea about this, but now there were all these like upper crusts, lords and ladies with these big gaping holes in their faces, and suddenly this like quote sin of like crafting a false nose, it started to seem a whole lot better, you know than the alternative of having, you know, a hole in your face. Yeah, I mean

that makes sense. And of course plastic surgeries development didn't end in Europe, and the techniques eventually made their way here to the United States, with one of the earliest practitioners being Dr John Medhour. You know, he and his sons ran this successful practice in Virginia, and they were specializing in repairing genital birth effects and then later on in reconstructive surgery, and his legacy is actually really impressive.

So met Hour is credited with performing the first hard cleft palate repair on the America's in eighteen seven, and notably, he completed the procedure by transplanting pieces of bone rather than just skin or muscle as previous surgeons had done. And so this new technique was this huge leap forward for reconstructive surgery, and it's actually the main reason why

Dr Metour is often called America's first plastic surgeon. Yeah, So it really seems like the nineteenth century is when modern plastic surgery really started to take off, and I was reading about how much of a game changer the

Civil War was for battlefield medicine. I mean, you think about things like amputation techniques or more reliable forms of anesthesia, but facial reconstruction was another area that saw these major advances during America's bloodiest war, and records actually show that Union surgeons perform more than thirty successful plastic surgeries on these disfigured soldiers during the war, and they also pioneered new techniques that would later become standards in the field,

like taking photo us to track the progress of repairs and and also using smaller sutures for incisions to help minimize the scarring. Yeah, you know, it's interesting how these advancements happened during war, because it actually wasn't just the Civil War where these kinds of breakthroughs happening, like both world wars actually also brought major innovations the plastic surgery as well. Yeah, I mean that that's definitely a good point, and we should spotlight a few of those advances before

we talk about the state of plastic surgery today. But before we go any further, why don't we take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the long, surprising history of plastic surgery. Okay, well, so we're up to the twentieth century now in our timeline, and we were just about to get into World War One. Yeah, that's right. You know, as we were saying, earlier wars have certainly led to these turning points, and you know,

reconstruction of various kinds and facial reconstruction specifically. And there were a couple of reasons for this. I mean, if you think about what was advanced in terms of warfare at that time, you had machine guns and aerial bombers that were being used in combat and and really for the first time during World War One. And the result of this, obvious, you know, tragic result of this is that more soldiers suffered facial wounds due to bullets and

shrapnel than in any of the wars before them. And you know, it's obviously awful, but the wounds were often more extensive than surgeons were used to treating. So the good news here is though, that anesthesia and the treatment of infections had definitely improved drastically by this time, So you had serious injuries that would have been fatal in the past that we're now considered survivable, and that included a lot of major facial disfigurements as a result of this. Yeah.

We mentioned earlier that there were some like thirty odd plastic surgeries during the Civil War, and that actually doesn't sound like that many at first, but when you consider how many soldiers died just because there was no way to stave off infection, it starts to make sense why the number was so low. Yeah, And so with World War One, surgeons suddenly found themselves with a lot of chances to develop and refine new ways to deal with disfigurements.

And one member of the medical community was especially helpful in this regard. His name was doctor Harold Gillies, and he was actually a nose, ear and throat specialists. He was from New Zealand and so he had joined the Royal Army Medical Corps at the start of the war, and so during his time on the Western Front, Gilly's learned as much as he could about reconstructive surgery, and this was mostly by observing the dentist and the doctors

that he was stationed with. So then when he returns to England, he was actually given the chance to apply what he learned to the newly opened Queens Hospital in London. There were more than a thousand beds there and these were reserved for patients in need of these facial reconstruction, so it was a ton of people. Yeah, I mean, it's almost hard to imagine that many people needing surgeries like that all at once. It's really it's really staggering

when you think about it. Yeah, no, it really is. Actually, there was such a demand for these services that patients often had to queue up outside the hospital. So even with a thousand beds there, it just gives you a

sense of how many people were affected by this. And there was this set of blue benches reserved exclusively for patients with facial disfigurements, and apparently the bright blue color was a way to warn the locals that they might want to look away when walking past the benches, and so it's just tragic to think about that, and you know, it might seem insensitive at first, but it was really as much for the patients as it was for the public.

And you know, if anything, the soldiers probably appreciated the break from people staring at them all the time. I guess. So what kind of breakthroughs was Gilly's making at that time. Well, there's actually probably too many to go through here, but one of the biggest was what he called the two pedicle or flat procedure, I guess. So basically, Gillies would cut a strip of living skin and tissue and then he would form it to this tube that was still

connected to the patient at one end. Then the tube could be laid across the patient's wounded face until the skin graft actually took root. Which sounds pretty gruesome, but I'm guessing there was some sort of upside to this approach. Yeah, definitely,

I mean a really big one. So before Gillies came along, reconstructive surgeries had long struggled on how to ward off infection in this open wound while they were waiting for this skin graft to take So his variation solved this problem because it ensured that blood continued to flow through the grafted area. So then once the graft had taken root, the surgeon could simply sever the tube and sculpt the

remaining tissue into the patient's new nose and throat. And you know, it doesn't paint this pretty picture but the technique was so successful that the work at Queen's Hospital continued long after the war had ended. So in total, the hospital performed more than eleven thousand operations on over five thousand patients before they finally closed their doors in nine five. And Gilly's actually received knighthood for his efforts.

And when World War two began, he kept working on this new set of soldiers that were in the same kind of need. That's a tremendous legacy. But you know, we we mostly dealt with the reconstructive side of plastic surgery so far. So what do you say we switched gears and focus on the cosmetic side for a little bit. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Actually, I'll start us off with

something that I was surprised to learn this week. So, even with nearly two million cosmetic surgeries performed in the US each year, the plastic surgery industry overall has actually shrunk by about twelve percent since the year two thousand. That's strange. I wouldn't have guessed that. I mean, I guess breast augmentations and liposuction just I mean, maybe they're

not as appealing as they used to be. Is that right, Yeah, I mean that those are still the top two cosmetic surgeries in the States, with roughly three hundred thousand each per year. But on the whole, there are fewer people undergoing the knife than there were about, you know, twenty

years or so ago. But the most interesting part to me, at least, was that while cosmetic surgeries are down, the number of minimally invasive cosmetic procedures like injection or laser hair removal, those numbers are only going up each year. So in fact, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that the number of these procedures has grown nearly two hundred percent since two thousand, so that's the same period

that you know, these cosmetic surgeries have been declining. Sure, and and I'm sure poker talks is one of the biggest reasons for all of exactly. You know, I do wonder what's behind that downward shift, Like, is it just that the minimally invasive stuff requires less downtime than than the full on surgeries or what's going on here? Yeah, I mean I think that's part of it, you know, plus the fact that these procedures are cheaper, they're faster.

Of course, you know, less invasive, like you mentioned. And I think it also doesn't hurt that there isn't as much stigma around something like microderm abrasion as there might be in getting a tummy tuck or a nose job or something like that. So I guess it kind of comes back to the idea that plastic surgery might still carry a connotation of phoniness like and I guess these similar types of procedures are a kind of a way

of sidestepping that stigma while still altering your appearance. Yeah, And you know, actually, just in looking this up, I think that desire for a more natural look as something that came up a lot. And there's a really good article about this and allure this past month, which is a sentence I never really thought i'd be saying, but I did want to share a quote from it really quickly. The author is Caitlyn Clark, and here's what she writes.

Disproportionate breast enhancement, overfilled lips, and exaggerated cosmetic procedures in general are all trends on their way out. Now. A successful plastic surgery or cosmetic procedure should no longer be obvious. Patients are increasingly wanting to maintain their general facial structure, inherited family traits, and just generally wanting to look like themselves, but with a few refined tweaks, which definitely tracks with

these so called tweakments I read about last week. So um, there's this new skin tightening treatment that's supposed to take off this year. It's a face tight and it actually uses this radio frequency energy to tighten and sculpt the skin around your neck and joline. It's it's totally non surgical, and the effects supposedly last up to five years, which is kind of amazing. And even on the surgical side, it seems like smaller, less obvious treatments are how most

people want to go these days. For instance, there's this one procedure that's becoming really popular right now, and it addresses something so obscure that you probably forgot. It's even a body part. I'm going to guess that we're talking about the U viola here at the back of your throw, because I've actually heard that can go in and sort of like shave it down if it's bothering you. Did you know this? I didn't realize that, but I guess

it's good to know. But you know that the surgery I'm talking about is actually for the filtrum, which is that little indented space between your nose and your lip, and it's sometimes also called cupids bow too. Alright, so what exactly are people doing to their filtrum's? Apparently the filtrum elongates over time, so a lotng one is a

pretty clear sign of age for some people. But now there's this quick little surgery where you make a tiny incision it goes right under the nose, and then lift up the lip a little so the filtrum looks smaller. And while that might still sound like a lot of trouble over something so small and so unnoticeable, the procedure tends to be easier and safer than getting lip injections or I guess using a bunch of weird fillers to

pump up your lips. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine how this new method might provide a more natural looking result. And you know, from everything I've been reading this week, it does seem like the average cosmetic surgery patient is more interested in this direction nowadays, Like not this complete overhaul, but kind of a subtle Like I kept seeing the

word plusing of what's already there. Yeah, it's an interesting shift from the way we used to be with these like over the top changes that gave cosmetic surgery such a bad rap in the first place. But you know, there's still a lot of potential pitfalls with these procedures, not to mention the lingering question of whether all this focus on physical appearance and beauty is actually good for us. All. We can spend a little bit of time mulling that one over. But before we get to that, let's take

one more quick break, all right, Mago. So before the break, you were saying there are still some drawbacks to cosmetic surgery, even with all the advancements and the greater focus on a more natural look that we see these days. So do you have an example of what kind of stuff you're you're actually referring to? Yeah, So, why don't we go back to nose jobs for a second. We live in such an age of wonder is that it's now possible to actually reshape your nose without the need for

any surgery at all. Instead, there are these are non surgical nose jobs that you got I guess you inject this acid based filler into your nose, and the filler then lodges into the imperfections in a person's nose, kind of filling in the gaps and smoothing everything into this more dreamline shape. I mean, it's interesting because it kind of goes back to some of the reconstructive nose jobs

we talked about earlier in the episode. You know, we're you're actually trying to build up the nose rather than shave it down like we're used to seeing. But in this case, like, what's the concern? Is the filler unsafe? No, it's not that. And if I were going to sum up the worry, I I think I'd say that the procedure makes it too easy to change the shape of your nose, and the whole thing takes something like fifteen

minutes of results are visible right away. But you know what, while that sounds like it might be a win across the board, there's evidence that the ease of access is actually resulting in way more people getting nose jobs than they would otherwise. But what's concerning is that people are changing the shape of their nose or other parts of their bodies based on false evidence. And I'm actually gonna

tell you what this is uh. According to a recent report from the American Academy of Facial, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, about fifty five for some of the people who visit a plastic surgeon do so because they want to improve the look at their selfies. Yeah, that's that's a little disconcerting. But I mean, on the other hand, is wanting to look better in selfies that much different than wanting to look good in a bathing suit or in a wedding photo,

or you know, like whatever other goal people might have. No, I mean, it isn't. But but the red flag in this case is that selfies aren't actually an accurate representation of the person who took him. In fact, that there was a study just last year that found that selfies taken too close can make your nose appear about thirty larger than it really is. And that makes sense, right, Like, like if if your nose sticks out of your face, it means it's close to the camera and as a result,

it's much bigger compared to everything else. I mean, that makes sense. But but what about the plastic surgeons themselves, Like that wouldn't they know that selfies aren't a fair representation of their clients that did they just go ahead with the procedures anyway. I mean, at the end of the day, it's not really their call to make right. But some plastic surgeons do try to talk their patients

out of it whenever possible. So you know, the study I mentioned was champion by this facial plastic surgeon named Boris pash Kover, and you noticed how frequently his patients were showing himselfies to explain why they wanted the surgery. So he started taking photos of them from the proper portrait distance, which is actually five feet away, just to give him a better sense of what their face actually

looks like. And as Boris put it, quote, I want them to realize that when they take a selfie there in essence looking into a portable fun house mirror. You

know that. I do think the elephant in the room that we really haven't touched on is that with any of the drawbacks we've been talking about, it's women who are disproportionately affected by them, because when you look at the stance for plastic surgery, eighty five to of the patients are women, depending on you know, the specific procedure, right, And the thing is people probably aren't too surprised to hear that, Like you always hear about how there's, you know,

an enormous pressure on women to look like other women do in movies or magazines or Instagram. And since those images are all overproduced and filtered and death from the photoshopped, a lot of us end up devoting a lot of time and energy chasing something unattainable. Yeah, you're right, and

it's a legitimate source of pain. And in fact, I was reading about this study and Scientific American where the researchers found that women who believe they can become more beautiful with effort have a higher risk of developing appearance based anxiety, and so they're more likely to show an interest in cosmetic surgery as a result of this. And so that wasn't the case for women who have more fixed views on their beauty. Yeah, no, that's right, and you know you might expect it wasn't the case for

men either. But what I did find interesting about this is is that believing we can improve a trait really can help us achieve that goal. So, just to take an example here, people who think that intelligence or creativity are malleable, they tend to improve in those areas over time, compared to people who don't believe those traits can be changed. That's weird. So having an eye towards improvement is actually

a good thing for the most part. I mean, that seems to be the case, but it mostly comes down to how realistic your goal is. So, according to the co author of the study, your name is Professor Melissa Berkeley, here's what she says. She says, prior research has shown that malleable beliefs increase motivation, which is good if we're talking about being motivated to stay in school or improve

somebody's math skills. But when the domain is as unrealistic as the beauty standards we have for women today, increasing motivation may lead to harmful behaviors. So basically, if someone's going to alter their appearance, you know, through a procedure or surgery, they should make sure they're doing it for the right reasons, not not because of how a selfie turned out or because of the way a celebrity looks on screen, but because they want the outside to better

reflect how they feel inside. Yeah, and you know, cosmetic surgery can be empowering in the same way as reconstructive surgery. I mean, you know, namely is a way to reclaim or reassert your own identity. And that doesn't mean that who you are should be completely wrapped up and how you look, but being comfortable in your own skin. It's you know, it's important, and it's crucial for mental health too. And if you'd rather just dabble in a lower key approach,

you can always try facer size. I mean, if it works for Trystan, it can work for anybody. I mean, he looks younger every single minute, like he's Benjamin Bunding right in front of our eyes. All Right, well, that's probably enough unsolicited beauty talk for one day, but we still have plenty left to chat about him. Today's fact off, so let's get to it. According to Colors magazine, Iran is the nose job capital of the world, and apparently the procedure is expensive enough that it carries a bit

of a status cloud with it. So um Colors puts it this way, people will wear their post surgery bandages for months like a badge of honor. Some even wear the bandages without undergoing the surgery. Al Right, well, there are all sorts of people who are obsessed with celebrities and get plastic surgery to look like them. You see stories of about them all over the internet, of course, and you know people paying to look more like Justin

Bieber or Kylie Jenner or Lindsay Lohan. But you know, one of the most surprising cases is this Chinese writer and super fan who has spent almost a quarter of a million dollars to get ten surgeries to look like guess who Williams Shakespeare. And apparently the only place he refuses to spend is the haircut. For some reason, he doesn't want the bards receding hairline, but he's been willing to grow his hair out just to kind of amplify

the look. That's great, you know. Weirdly enough, there's a surgery to switch your left and right fingerprints by slicing them off and grafting them on the other And I guess authorities only found out about this in two thousand nine when this woman who had been kicked out of Japan for overstaying her visa re entered the country and then was caught for a different crime. Her name was

Lynn Wrong. She paid fifteen dollars for the surgery to mask her fingerprints and it's been dubbed Japan's first biometric fraud crime. All right, well, did you know the inventor of botox, who was this opthalmologist named Alan Scott, never really cared about wrinkles. So he had this patient who had undergone three surgeries for double vision, and this was, you know, his way of using like almost like this

natural duct tape to patch up the eye. So Scott says he isn't sure who was more nervous about the experimental treatment, him giving it or the patient receiving it. But once it was successful, Scott sold the concept to Allergan, who immediately realized the skin smoothing benefits. Mhmm, So here's something I hadn't realized. Animal plastic surgeries are actually a thing, and people have been getting Tommy talks, eyelid lifts, and laser nostril procedures for their dogs for a while now.

And the treatments aren't purely cosmetic. The treatments actually prevent bacterial infections and helped the dogs with wrinkled noses breathe better. It tends to be a booming industry. Apparently, in two thousand eleven, people spent sixty two million dollars on plastic surgery for their pets. But I'm actually gonna tell you about one story where it made a huge difference. And this was at the Vancouver Aquarium. There was this one eyed yellow tail rock fish and the vets they're noticed.

It was getting bullied by the other fish in the tank, like they'd steal its food, they'd attack it from that side, and it was just low confidence, I guess. But the doctor sewed this big, bright yellow prosthetic eye into the socket and now the fish is fatter, he's doing well, and he isn't getting bullied anymore. Well, that's a great story. Actually, I think that's good enough. I think I'm gonna let you take the fact off today. Mango. Well, I'm happy

about it. Thank you. Well that is it for today's show. If you've got facts or topics you want to share, you know, we always love hearing from you at Part Time Genius and How Stuff Works dot com or find us on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me, thanks so much for listening to the Bod