- Source: Auguste Charles Valadier
Sir Auguste Charles Valadier (26 November 1873–31 August 1931) was a Franco-American dental surgeon who pioneered new techniques and equipment for treating maxillofacial injuries of soldiers during World War I.
Early life
Valadier was born in Paris, France in 1873, the son of Marie-Antoinette and Charles Jean-Baptiste Valadier, a pharmacist. As a boy he and his two younger brothers were taken to live in the United States by his parents. He entered the Philadelphia Dental College as a student in about 1898, and qualified as Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) in 1901. He next took the State examinations which allowed him to practice in Pennsylvania and New York, practicing in the latter for five years.
Return to Paris
By 1910 Valadier's mother was widowed and wealthy and living in Paris, and on the death of her other son she persuaded Valadier to join her there. As he had no French dental qualifications, Valadier studied at l'Ecole Odontotechnique de Paris from November 1910 to June 1911, and received the certificate of Chirugien Dentiste
from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Paris in July 1912, following which he was permitted to practice in France. In July 1913 he married Alice Wright, the granddaughter of Robert Clinton Wright, a former United States Minister in Brazil.
World War I
On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Valadier joined the British Red Cross Society (BRCS) in Paris who sent him to Abbeville. The History of the Great War (1922) records: "Dental surgeons commenced to arrive in France in early November and were allocated to clearing hospitals and to the bases. An eminent dentist, M. Valadier, a citizen of the United States, who had been sent from Paris to Abbeville by the BRCS, was also accepted for duty with the British troops on 29 October." Valadier seems to have been the first dental surgeon to have provided dental treatment for the British troops in France. The dental surgeons sent over by the War Office were given temporary commissions while attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps, and Valadier was gazetted as an honorary Lieutenant, and in 1916 was promoted to Major.
By early 1915 Valadier had set up a 50-bed unit attached to the 83rd (Dublin) General Hospital at Wimereux for the treatment of facial injuries. Much of this work was done at his own expense, while his own dental technicians in his dental laboratory in Paris fashioned the dental appliances necessary for the treatment of fractures to the jaw. It was decided that in the operating theatre Valadier would require the assistance of a trained surgeon, and so Harold Gillies joined his team. It is not known how long Gillies stayed with Valadier, but it was certainly long enough to inspire Gillies a desire to learn more about this new medical treatment,
On 17 May 1915 The Daily Sketch reported on a case of reconstructive surgery performed by Valadier:
Surely the most wonderful surgical feat of the war so far must be that achieved by Lieut. Valadier, R.A.M.C., for a Highlander.
The story was told the Daily Sketch yesterday at the fascinating exhibition of fracture apparatus now being held on the premises of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.
At Neuve Chapelle the Highlander was hit, and the simplest way to describe what happened to him is to say that he lost his mouth.
He was looking up when a piece of shell struck him in the left cheek. It passed through his top lip, shattered the upper jaw, fell upon the lower jaw, and smashed that. Then it glanced off and buried itself into his right shoulder.
Taken to hospital, the Highlander had the good fortune to fall into the hands of Lieutenant Valadier, who is a Frenchman by birth. He has studied in the States, and is now attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps.
The patient's mouth was just a shapeless mess. Lieutenant Valadier was able to provide an artificial mouth-floor, and then, by using a special type of splints, to draw the sides into position again. The jaws were in some marvellous manner reset, and the man was given new teeth.
Now he can eat and speak as well as ever, and has only one light scar to show that anything has ever happened to him.