Archibald McIndoe

Archibald McIndoe was born 4 May 1900 in Forbury, in Dunedin, New Zealand, into a family of four.Meikle 2013, p. 109. His father was John McIndoe, a printer and his mother was the artist Mabel McIndoe née Hill. He had three brothers and one sister. McIndoe studied at Otago Boys' High School and later medicine at the University of Otago. After his graduation, he became a house surgeon at Waikato Hospital.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

In 1924, McIndoe was awarded the first New Zealand Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in the United States to study pathological anatomy.{{cn|date=April 2025}} The fellowship was for an unmarried doctor and as McIndoe had recently married Adonia Aitkin they had to keep their marriage secret and he sailed without her. When it was no longer possible to maintain the secret she joined him 12 months later. He worked in the clinic as First Assistant in Pathological Anatomy 1925–1927 and published several papers on chronic liver disease. Impressed with his skill, Lord Moynihan suggested a career in Britain, and in 1930 McIndoe moved to London.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

When McIndoe could not find work, his cousin Sir Harold Gillies, an otolaryngologist specialising in plastic surgery (who now has an operation for reducing a broken cheekbone named after himself), invited him to join the private practice he ran with Rainsford Mowlem and offered him a job at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he became a clinical assistant.{{cn|date=April 2025}} In 1932, McIndoe received a permanent appointment as a General Surgeon and Lecturer at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

In 1934, McIndoe received a Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons, where he worked until 1939.{{cn|date=April 2025}} That year, he became a consulting plastic surgeon to the Royal North Stafford Infirmary and to Croydon General Hospital. In 1938, he was appointed consultant in plastic surgery to the Royal Air Force.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

When the Second World War broke out, plastic surgery was largely divided on service lines. Gillies went to Rooksdown House near Basingstoke, which became the principal army plastic surgery unit; Tommy Kilner (who had worked with Gillies during the First World War, and who now has a surgical instrument named after him, the kilner cheek retractor), went to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, and Mowlem to St Albans. McIndoe moved to the recently rebuilt Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, and founded a Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery. There, he treated very deep burns and serious facial disfigurement like loss of eyelids. With McIndoe's support, patients at the hospital formed the Guinea Pig Club, a social club and mutual support network: members included Richard Hillary, Geoffrey Page, Bill Foxley and Jimmy Edwards. The club grew to 649 members by the end of the war.{{Cite news |date=2014-06-09 |title=WW2 surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe statue unveiled |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-27770830 |access-date=2024-09-14 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}{{Cite news |date=May 21, 2017 |title=Story of maverick WW2 'Guinea pig' surgeon to be told on big screen for first time |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/21/story-maverick-ww2-guinea-pig-surgeon-told-big-screen-first/ |work=telegraph.co.uk}}

McIndoe was a brilliant and quick surgeon. He not only developed new techniques for treating badly burned faces and hands but also recognised the importance of the rehabilitation of the casualties and particularly of social reintegration back into normal life. He disposed of the "convalescent uniforms" and let the patients use their service uniforms instead. With the help of two friends, Neville and Elaine Blond, he also encouraged the locals to support the patients and invite them to their homes. McIndoe referred to the patients as "his boys", while the staff called him "the Boss" or "the Maestro".

Important work included development of the walking-stalk skin graft, and the discovery that immersion in saline promoted healing as well as improving survival rates for victims with extensive burns – this was a serendipitous discovery drawn from observation of differential healing rates in pilots who had come down on land and in the sea.{{Cite news |date=2016-11-02 |title='I cheated death and joined the Guinea Pig Club' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/health-37840480 |access-date=2024-09-14 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}

After the end of the war, McIndoe returned to private practice. His speciality was the "McIndoe nose".

McIndoe was created CBE in 1944 and after the war he received a number of British and foreign honours, including a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur (Commander of the Legion of Honour){{cite journal |first=M. |last=Brewer |title=New Zealand and the Légion d'honneur: Officiers, Commandeurs and Dignites |journal=The Volunteers: The Journal of the New Zealand Military Historical Society |volume=35 |issue=3 |year=2010 |pages=131–147 }} and was knighted in 1947 for his remarkable work on restoring the minds and bodies of the burnt young pilots of the Second World War through his innovative reconstructive surgery techniques. That same year he visited East Africa for the first time, and took up farming on Kilimanjaro. In 1957, with two former pupils, Michael Wood and Tom Rees, he co-founded the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).

He became a member of a council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1946 and its vice-president in 1958. His marriage to Adonia ended in 1953, and he married Constance Belchem in 1954. In 1958, McIndoe delivered the Bradshaw Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons on the topic of the reconstruction of the burned face.McIndoe 1983. He took part in the founding of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (BAPS) and later served as its third President.{{Cite web |title=Archibald McIndoe |url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/sir-archibald-mcindoe |website=nzhistory.govt.nz}} The Guinea Pig Club continued to meet after the war, and McIndoe remained its President until his death.

Archibald McIndoe died in his sleep of a heart attack on 11 April 1960, aged 59, in his house at 84 Albion Gate, London.Meikle 2013, p. 195. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were given the unique honour for a civilian of being buried at the Royal Air Force church of St Clement Danes in London.

McIndoe married Adonia Aitkin of Dunedin on 31 July 1924. They had two daughters, Adonia and Vanora. They were divorced in 1953. In 1954, McIndoe married Constance Belchem, the former wife of Major-General R. F. K. Belchem.{{Who's Who | id= U240605 | title=McIndoe, Sir Archibald (Hector) }}

File:SIR ARCHIBALD McINDOE 1900-1960 Reconstructive Surgeon lived here in flat 14.JPG on McIndoe's former home at Avenue Court, 23–29 Draycott Avenue, Chelsea, London]]

File:McIndoe monument.jpg, by Martin Jennings{{Cite news |date=2013-04-04 |title=War surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe and his 'Guinea Pigs' honoured |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/05/wartime-surgeon-archibald-mcindoe-honoured |access-date=2024-09-14 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}]]

On 22 March 1961, the British Minister of Health opened the Blond McIndoe Centre named in his honour at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. The Blond McIndoe Centre, now named the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, continues research into pioneering treatments to improve wound healing. The Blond McIndoe Research Foundation is a registered charity.

The McIndoe Burns Centre at Queen Victoria Hospital was dedicated in 1994, and there is a burns victim support group centred there which also bears his name.

Specialist science laboratories at Otago Boys' High School, built in 1967, are named in his honour. The school later named one of its houses after McIndoe after the introduction of a house system in 2013.{{Cite web |title=Houses » Otago Boys' High School |url=https://obhs.school.nz/our-school/houses/ |access-date=2022-09-20 |website=obhs.school.nz}}{{Cite web |last=Lewis |first=John |date=2012-06-12 |title=Otago Boys' to introduce house system |url=https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/otago-boys-introduce-house-system |access-date=2022-09-20 |website=Otago Daily Times |language=en}}

The Gillies McIndoe Research Institute, a major medical research centre in Wellington, New Zealand, is named in honour of McIndoe and his cousin Sir Harold Gillies.{{Cite web |title=Gillies McIndoe Research Institute |url=https://www.gmri.org.nz/ |access-date=2024-09-14 |website=Gillies McIndoe Research Institute |language=en-NZ}}

In 2000, an English Heritage blue plaque was erected on McIndoe's former London home at Avenue Court, Draycott Avenue, Chelsea.

A bronze monument commemorating McIndoe by Martin Jennings, whose own father was one of his patients, was unveiled by Princess Anne in East Grinstead High Street, in front of Sackville College, in 2014. It depicts the standing McIndoe resting his hands reassuringly on the shoulders of a seated injured airman, whose burned hands are clawed together, and whose scarred face is turned to one side. The two figures are encircled by a stone bench.{{cite news |first=Harry |last=de Quetteville |title=The pioneering surgeon who healed men scarred by war, a new monument created in his honour – and the remarkable twist of fate that links them|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10865297/The-pioneering-surgeon-who-healed-men-scarred-by-war-a-new-monument-created-in-his-honour-and-the-remarkable-twist-of-fate-that-links-them.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531021348/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10865297/The-pioneering-surgeon-who-healed-men-scarred-by-war-a-new-monument-created-in-his-honour-and-the-remarkable-twist-of-fate-that-links-them.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 May 2014|access-date=31 May 2014|newspaper=Daily Telegraph|date=30 May 2014}} Jennings described the airman as "looking up at the sky he cannot fly in any more".{{Cite news |date=2013-04-05 |title=WWII plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe statue appeal |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-22043647 |access-date=2024-09-14 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}

It was reported in 2017 that a film named The Guinea Pig Club was being planned on McIndoe's career in World War II, directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Richard E. Grant as McIndoe.{{Cite web |last=Ford |first=Rebecca |date=2017-05-11 |title=Cannes: Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Irvine, Sam Neill to Star in 'The Guinea Pig Club' |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-richard-e-grant-jeremy-irvine-sam-neill-star-guinea-pig-club-1002613/ |access-date=2024-09-14 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Lodderhose |first=Diana |date=2017-05-11 |title=Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Irvine and Sam Neill Head To 'The Guinea Pig Club' – Cannes |url=https://deadline.com/2017/05/richard-e-grant-jeremy-irvine-sam-neill-the-guinea-pig-club-cannes-radiant-films-international-1202090092/ |access-date=2024-09-14 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}

• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Counsellor |first2=V. S. |title=Primary carcinoma of the liver of possible multicentric origin occurring in a case of portal cirrhosis |journal=American Journal of Pathology |volume=2 |pages=557–66 |year=1926 |issue=6 |pmid=19969721 |pmc=1931785}}
• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Counsellor |first2=V. |journal=Archives of Surgery |title=A report on the bilaterality of the liver |year=1927 |volume=15 |page=589 |doi=10.1001/archsurg.1927.01130220092007}}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Vascular lesions of portal cirrhosis |journal=Archives of Pathology |year=1928 |volume=5 |pages=23–42 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=The structure and arrangement of the bile canaliculi |journal=Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine |year=1928 |volume=6 |pages=598–614 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=British Journal of Surgery |title=Delayed haemorrhage following traumatic rupture of the spleen |year=1932 |volume=20 |issue=78 |pages=249–68 |doi=10.1002/bjs.1800207809 |s2cid=70414493 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=The treatment of hypospadias |journal=American Journal of Surgery |year=1937 |volume=38 |pages=176–185 |doi=10.1016/s0002-9610(37)90415-x|s2cid=72499401 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Operation for the cure of adult hypospadias |journal=British Medical Journal |year=1937 |volume=1 |issue=3972 |pages=385–404 |doi=10.1136/bmj.1.3972.385|pmid=20780489 |pmc=2088248 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=Surgery |title=The application of cavity grafting |year=1937 |volume=1 |page=535 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Banister |first2=J. Bright |journal=Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Commonwealth |title=An operation for the cure of congenital absence of the vagina |year=1938 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=490–494 |doi=10.1111/j.1471-0528.1938.tb11141.x|s2cid=72526349 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=The Lancet |title=Correction of the alar deformity in cleft lip and palate |year=1938 |volume=1 |page=607 |doi=10.1016/s0140-6736(00)86824-5 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=The functional aspect of burn therapy |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine |year=1940 |volume=34 |pages=56–65 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Diagnosis and treatment of injuries of the middle third of the face |journal=British Dental Journal |year=1941 |volume=71 |page=235 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |title=Deformities of the male urethra |year=1948 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=29–47 |doi=10.1016/s0007-1226(48)80007-x|pmid=18874750 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |title=The treatment of hypospadias |year=1948 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=29–47 |doi=10.1016/s0007-1226(48)80007-x|pmid=18874750 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Editorial |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |year=1949 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1016/S0007-1226(49)80002-6 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Total facial reconstruction following burns |journal=Postgraduate Medicine |year=1949 |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=187–200 |doi=10.1080/00325481.1949.11945603|pmid=18139763 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |title=Treatment of congenital absence and obliterative conditions of the vagina |year=1950 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=254–67 |pmid=15410301 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine |title=Discussion on the treatment of chronic oedema of the leg |year=1950 |volume=43 |issue=12 |pages=1043–1059 |doi=10.1177/003591575004301218|doi-access=free |pmc=2081866 }}
• {{cite book |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |chapter=[unknown] |editor1-first=Tord |editor1-last=Skoog |editor2-first=Robert H. |editor2-last=Ivy |title=Transactions of the International Society of Plastic Surgeons: First Congress, Stockholm and Uppsala, 1955 |location=Baltimore |publisher=Williams & Wilkins Co. |year=1957 |page=414 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=The surgical management of Dupuytren's contracture |journal=American Journal of Surgery |year=1958 |volume=95 |issue=2 |pages=197–203 |doi=10.1016/0002-9610(58)90502-6|pmid=13487940 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |title=Mammaplasty: indications, technique, and complications |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |year=1958 |volume=10 |pages=307–320 |doi=10.1016/s0007-1226(57)80046-0}}
• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Owen Smith |first2=B. |title=Congenital familial fibromatosis of the gums with the teeth as a probable ætiological factor: report of an affected family |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |year=1958 |volume=11 |pages=62–71 |doi=10.1016/S0007-1226(58)80008-9 |doi-access=free }}
• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Rees |first2=T. D. |journal=Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery |title=Synchronous repair of secondary deformities in cleft lip and nose |year=1959 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=150–61 |doi=10.1097/00006534-195908000-00002|s2cid=71806534 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=McIndoe |first1=A. H. |last2=Simmons |first2=C. A. |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine |title=Discussion on the treatment of congenital absence of vagina with emphasis on long-term results |year=1959 |volume=52 |pages=952–54 |doi=10.1177/003591575905201114|doi-access=free |pmc=1870795 }}
• {{cite journal |last=McIndoe |first=A. H. |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |title=Total reconstruction of the burned face: The Bradshaw Lecture 1958 |year=1983 |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=410–20 |doi=10.1016/0007-1226(83)90119-4|pmid=6626818 }}

• Mollie Lentaigne, a medical artist and nurse at East Grinstead who made drawings of McIndoe's procedures

{{reflist}}

• {{cite journal |last=Bennett |first=J. P. |title=A history of the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead |journal=British Journal of Plastic Surgery |year=1988 |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=422–440 |doi=10.1016/0007-1226(88)90088-4 |pmid=3293680 }}
• {{cite book |first=Edward| last=Bishop| title=McIndoe's Army| year=2001 |publisher= Grub Street| location=London| isbn=1-902304-93-4}}
• {{cite book |first=Colin |last=Hodgkinson |title=Best Foot Forward |place=London |publisher=Odhams |year=1957 }} – autobiography of a double amputee (both legs) fighter pilot who was treated many times to repair facial damage
• {{cite book |last=McCleave |first=Hugh |title=McIndoe: Plastic Surgeon |location=London |publisher=Frederick Muller |year=1961 }}
• {{cite book |first=Emily| last=Mayhew| title=The Reconstruction of Warriors: Archibald McIndoe, the Royal Air Force and the Guinea Pig Club |year=2006 |publisher= Greenhill Books| isbn=1-85367-610-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Meikle |first=Murray C. |title=Reconstructing Faces: the art and wartime surgery of Gillies, Pickerill, McIndoe and Mowlem |location=Dunedin |publisher=Otago University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-877578-39-7 }}
• {{cite book |first=Leonard |last=Mosley |author-link=Leonard Mosley |title=Faces from the Fire: the biography of Sir Archibald McIndoe |year=1962 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |location=London }}

• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7556326 Artists' Masks Hid Wounds of World War I Soldiers]
• [http://www.blondmcindoe.com Blond McIndoe Research Foundation]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071017024440/http://www.mcindoe-surgical.co.uk/sir-archibald-mcindoe.htm McIndoe Surgical Centre]
• [http://lowfellwritersplace.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-guinea-pig-club-sir-archibald.html 75th Anniversary of The Guinea Pig Club & Sir Archibald McIndoe]
• {{cite web|url=http://www.surgical-tutor.org.uk/default-home.htm?surgeons/mcindoe.htm~right |title=Sir Archibald McIndoe (1900–1960) |publisher=surgical-tutor.org.uk |access-date=10 March 2021}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:McIndoe, Archibald}}

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