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COSMETIC SURGERY IN PARIS IN 1926

The Case of the Amputated Leg
Carolyn Comiskey

JOURNAL OF WOMENS HISTORY

In 1926, a young fashion designer went to a well-known surgeon and asked him to make her calves thinner. This operation did not work; one of her legs was amputated, and she sued her doctor. The judge in the trial ruled for the designer, stating that a surgeon could not perform a dangerous operation on a healthy body in the name of beauty. This trial serves as an excellent site for examining the cultural shaping of the female body through fashion and plastic surgery during France in the 1920s. Changes in French fashion and cultural ideals of beauty, as well as the increased influence of the mass media, provide the necessary context to understand the designers desire to transform her body through cosmetic surgery. This case hastened the professionalization of the young field of cosmetic surgery as surgeons fought to establish the value of this medical practice. Their primary defense of the field of cosmetic surgery was that it provided a necessary service because of the social importance of beauty in the brutal struggle for existence, particularly for women. The cosmetic surgeons prevailed in the appeal two years later and were able, as one commentator noted, to continue their glorious march against sickness and ugliness. n Paris, at the beginning of 1926, there was a very happy young woman.1 So began the opening statement of Jos Thry, the lawyer for a young woman suing a plastic surgeon in 1929. Thry presented his case as a fairy tale gone wrong.2 The would-be heroine was Suzanne Geoffre, who had recently founded a prosperous maison de couture.3 Geoffre had been the head of a workroom at a large fashion concern until 1922, but she had patiently saved money to create her own business. Her successful fashion house, noted her lawyer, was the result of hard work and the realization of her hopes. However, according to Thry, In the perfect happiness of Suzanne Geoffre, there was but a very small shadow. . . . her legs were a bit heavy.4 Being serious and prudent,5 Geoffre sought information from Dr. Lopold Lvy, a specialist in sicknesses of circulation and obesity. Levy told her that she was in perfect health, that he found nothing abnormal, and that in his opinion, there was nothing medicine could do for her. At this point, according to Thrys narrative, Geoffre inquired, but wouldnt it be possible to obtain the result that I want through cosmetic surgery?6 Lvy recommended one of the best known surgeons in Paris, Dr. Dujarrier, and Geoffre went directly to his office. Dujarrier examined her, explained
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that she had a simple excess of fat7 in her legs, and told her that it would be very easy to remove. The operation took place the next day, 28 February 1926. According to Thry, instead of simply removing a layer of fat, Dujarrier cut a mass of muscle out of Geoffres calf. He then tried to bring the edges of the wound together and sew them with stitches, but the amount of flesh he had cut out was too great and the edges would not come together. As a result, Dujarrier had to tie up this leg. . . like a sausage.8 Shortly thereafter, Geoffre found that she had lost all feeling in her foot and could not move it. Every day for the next three weeks, doctors removed strips of gray flesh from her leg. On 20 March, Dujarrier told Geoffre that gangrene had developed and that her leg would have to be cut off or she would be dead within forty-eight hours. Geoffre refused, saying she would rather die. She was finally persuaded to undergo the operation after her fianc, M. Le Guen, offered to marry her in the hospital. The couple was married that evening, and the next day, the leg was amputated. As soon as Suzanne Geoffre Le Guen recovered, the newly married couple filed a civil suit for damages against the surgeon for 500,000 francs.9 This case first went to trial in the Tribunal Civil de la Seine in February 1929. The judge ruled in favor of the Le Guens and awarded them 200,000 francs.10 The Court of Appeals heard the case two years later and upheld the decision. This fascinating case provides an excellent site for examining the cultural and physical manipulation of the female body through fashion and plastic surgery in 1920s France. Studying the effects of cultural practices on the body, or the ways that bodies are physically fashioned by the cultures they inhabit, recently has been a rich field of research in feminist and cultural studies. Feminist scholars have used philosopher Michel Foucaults notions about power to develop a critique of Western standards of beauty and fashion, arguing that disciplinary practices emerged during the twentieth century to produce a modern ideal body of femininity of a certain size and shape.11 While some feminist critics have argued that Foucauldian theory presents women as victims with little agency to shape their own lives, Lois McNay argues that Foucaults later work on techniques of the self provides more room for individual choice and autonomy in self-fashioning. In this later work, Foucault suggested that while the practices available to the individual are always conditioned and overdetermined by the socio-cultural context, individuals respond differently to societal prescriptions and demands, and thus exercise a degree of self-determination in their actions.12 In a similar vein, while I argue that Geoffres body was in some sense physically shaped by the disciplinary forces of fashion, the mass media, and cosmetic surgery, I do not wish to imply that Geoffres choices were wholly predetermined.

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This article first explores the context in which Suzanne Geoffre decided to refashion her figure. The case of the amputated leg occurred at a moment in which cosmetic surgery was emerging as a profession and new ideals of beauty were spreading quickly through mass culture. I argue that changes in French fashion and cultural ideals of beauty, as well as the increased influence of the mass media, fueled Geoffres desire to embody the emerging ideal of beauty. While her choice of cosmetic surgery as the technique by which she could transform herself was as yet uncommon, by this point in time it was well known that the option was available. Second, I look at the response of cosmetic surgeons to the trial. In the judgment in the first trial, Judge Flach stated that the primary issue in this case was the question of whether or not a surgeon could perform a dangerous operation on a healthy body in the name of beauty.13 He determined that doctors did not have this right, in part because, Beauty and aesthetics, when controlled by the laws of fashion, are essentially fickle. Since the ideals of beauty were ephemeral, Geoffres deformity did not really exist and there was nothing seriously wrong with her body which would justify a surgeons operation.14 Medical professionals in both France and the United States closely watched the LeGuen case. Dujarrier was a distinguished doctor who had written an important medical textbook on the anatomy of limbs. The decision implicitly condemned all surgical operations that were not absolutely necessary to save a human life, particularly operations that were solely for cosmetic purposes. According to this decision, a doctor could be at fault not only for medical mistakes made during an operation, but also for simply carrying out a procedure. This case was thus a major impediment to the establishment of cosmetic surgery as a legitimate field of medicine. The judgment against Dujarrier hastened the professionalization of the young field of cosmetic surgery as surgeons fought to establish the legitimacy of this medical practice. Surgeons banded together in newly formed professional organizations and defended themselves in print. In their written works and at their conferences, they discussed what constituted an illness, who should be operated upon, and under what circumstances. They defended cosmetic surgery as a noble profession, arguing that it was necessary because of the social importance of beauty in the brutal struggle for existence, particularly for women. The doctors argued that because beauty was so essential in finding a mate and in obtaining and keeping a job, they provided an important service and should be allowed to practice cosmetic surgery.

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Fashion. . . is a tyrannical goddess

Geoffres lawyer stated that Fashion . . . is a tyrannical goddess15 which, by raising hemlines to knee-length, caused his client to be disgraced by her unsightly legs. Her desire for thinner calves was clearly related to the changes in French fashion in the early twentieth century, particularly the mid-1920s. Historian Peter Stearns has recently examined the development of the ideal of thinness in both French and American society. The idea that even moderate fat was disgraceful began to emerge in the 1890s; for the first time, those who could afford to eat began to consume less food in search of an aesthetic, and not a spiritual, ideal.16 By 1911, the Journal de la beaut advertised pills and slimming soaps which were to be rubbed on parts of the body that were too fat.17 While fat was seen as unappealing on both men and women, it was the female body that was the particular focus of the new aesthetic ideal. Although the movement towards a slimmer silhouette began before the First World War, it was only after the war that slimness became a cultural obsession. Before 1914, no single standard of beauty predominated, fashion was quite varied, and concealing clothing was still accepted.18 The ideal woman at the turn of the century had beautiful curves, a full bosom, and wide hips; she was fleshy, and although her legs were not seen, they were to be round and ample.19 After the First World War, a new fashion style took root. Art Deco, which reached its peak of popularity in the Paris Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925, was highly influential. Its geometric lines were adapted as the model for the new fashion silhouette, replacing the previously popular round, plump curves.20 The new ideal of feminine beauty emphasized a very small bust, a stick-like figure, and long legs (Figure 1). This look was youthful and boyishattention was drawn away from the hips and breasts, signs of a mature, motherly figure. As breasts and waistlines were de-emphasized, visual attention was shifted to the legs. Legs were shown off after what one fashion historian calls the real revolution of short skirts in 1925, when the skirt first came up to the knee. 21 These increasingly revealing fashions drew greater attention to the female body. Prior to this time, the body was completely draped in clothing; its contours had to be inferred from beneath the clothing, while the clothing itself remained the center of attention. In the 1920s, however, fat became more difficult to hide. New fashions made those without slender figures look fat; dresses hung in such a way that the tubular line of dress was determined by the widest part of the body.22 Many women had switched from constricting corsets to longer, elasticized girdles that reduced their hips more than their waists, but it was probably still difficult to hide the newly exposed leg.23 Indeed, one commentator noted in 1928 that it was easier for women to hide flaws in the older fashions: In the era of

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Figure 1: Vogue, October 1925

long skirts, high collars, frills and flowers, small defects like pimples, wrinkles, blotches, and superfluous hairs were easily hidden. Now that we expose ourselves half-naked to the looks of others, we must try to have clear, healthy skin and supple and harmonious limbs.24 Slim legs became central to the overall concern with slenderness, and, since they were only recently revealed to the public eye, they may have been especially important erotically. Beauty manuals from the period enumerated the qualities necessary for shapely legs. A book of beauty recipes published in 1920 was an early definer of the attractive leg: To be beautiful, the leg should be long, plump, supple, sleek, white and in proportion to the rest of the body. It should have a high, defined, well-rounded calf, and should not end brusquely but by a gradual progression, in a thin foot and a slender ankle. . . . Fatness or thinness of the leg is contrary to beauty.25 The short skirts fashionable in the mid-twenties, according to Madame Simson in 1933, gave birth to our desires to possess perfect [legs]. . . .[which] must touch at four points: at the top third of the thigh, at the knee, at the

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calf, and at the ankles. The calves should be high and round. Legs should be long, ankles slender, skin white and smooth, with no varicose veins [or] hair to tarnish the beauty.26 That women were concerned with the shape of their legs is demonstrated by a 1925 advertisement in Vogue announcing that All pretty women can have svelte legs, fine ankles, if they bought radioactive rubber bands and wore them around the lower parts of their legs for one hour each day (Figure 2). In Geoffres Paris, not only was fashion changing in ways that increasingly emphasized the body (and the legs in particular), but fashion and beauty also were growing in social importance. Old strictures against vanity seemed to have diminished and devotion to personal appearance became a new religion for women by the twenties.27 By the mid-1920s, beauty was a big business in France: make-up parlors were found all over large cities, cosmetics were more affordable, and department stores offered beauty sections. The increasingly important mass culture spread the latest ideals of beauty. Stearns notes that while French women did not obtain the vote after the First World War, they did get new access to public leisure, nightlife, cosmeticsand slenderness. The links were explicit, as womens magazines trumpeted a slim body as part of the whole, desirable modern package for women.28 Movie theaters were everywhere in urban France by the 1920s, and the plots of the (mostly American) movies focused on romance and the winning of husbands and lovers. Images of beauty were central to this quest, especially before the arrival of the first French talkie in 1929. Advertising also pushed the message that beauty was crucial. Fashion historian Julian Robinson describes its message as, Ladies be beautiful. Intelligence is deceitful. Amiability is useless and Virtue is vain. If you want to please the strong, strenuous, silent male, looks are your only bait Be lovely or lose him.29 Thus, mass culture promoted not only a certain type of physical idealthat of slendernessbut also proposed this beauty as the central component of a womans ability to attract a man. In this climate, looks played an increasing role for both sexes in terms of choosing a good partner.30 Mme Vriac-Lecot, writing in 1929, just a few years after Geoffres operation, referred specifically to the beautiful calf as a way to attract a husband: A young woman passes by, coquettishly dressed; one sees her graceful calf; a young man is enticed, follows her, declares his passion for her, and, because she has a beautiful leg, asks her for . . . her hand! The author continued, a beautiful leg is, in effect, very alluring. Ending in a sweet little foot, and especially when the woman walks gracefully, the leg provides elegance and allure and inflames desires. Men really appreciate a beautiful leg, a beautiful calf, a pretty foot.31 What were women who did not fit the new ideal of beauty to do? Historian Marylne Delbourg-Delphis posits that a new conception of

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Figure 2: Vogue, August 1925

beauty arose in the 1920s, based on faith in the bodys malleability and its ability to be shaped and improved.32 Geoffre and other women had a number of options available to them to improve their figures. In the 1920s, experts began urging women to eat more lightly and to exercise; doctors penned and published a number of popular diet guides; magazines carried advice on dieting; and fitness programs promised women they could shape their figures to fit current fashions. Also promoted in magazines and beauty guides were massage treatments and reducing belts, which would break down fat tissues, slimming baths, and thyroid pills.33 Cosmetic surgery was also becoming widely recognized as an option, and while not endorsing cosmetic surgery, several beauty guides discussed it alongside the other possibilities.34 It is not clear why Geoffre chose surgery over these other options, although it is possible that this procedure seemed easiest and most effectivedieting and exercise did not have a big impact on calves, and massage had dubious benefits.35 Historian Mary Louise Roberts argues that conservatives viewed 1920s fashions such as the short haircut and androgynous dress as a scandalous rejection of traditional female roles, while defenders of the fashions presented them as modern and liberating. Since the new fashions were viewed as liberating by both supporters and critics, they became invested with political meaning. By wearing them, women could project an image of them-

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selves as a liberated even as they were constrained by the new demands of the fashion styles.36 However, Geoffres attempt to remake her calves to fit the latest fashions seems quite different from the flappers projection of freedom; in any case, her cosmetic surgery backfired and Geoffre became less, not more, attractive. Geoffres lawyer described her as a very young woman at the mercy of fashion: [B]y a decree of fashion which . . . is a tyrannical goddess, the ideal is legs of a gazelle. Let us add that the same fashion, which demands that womens legs be as thin as possible, each day raises the length of hemlines, so that those women who have the misfortune of not having very thin legs are obligated to show this disgrace in public.37 Thry presented Geoffre as a victim who knew nothing of medicine or surgery and depended on Dujarrier for his medical expertise.38 Thrys depiction of Geoffre as a helpless woman was, of course, likely an exaggeration, part of a legal strategy to present her as a victim so that she could win damages. However, fashion certainly appears to be a primary influence upon her desire to remake her figure. After all, she was directly involved in the fashion industry, having worked for a designer and then started her own fashion house. In addition, the date of her operation coincides almost exactly with the period of rising hemlines, which suggests a relationship between her decision to undergo the operation and the fashions of 1926 (Figure 3). Hemlines had risen to several inches above the ankle before the World War I, but women did not normally expose a large area of leg until skirts rose to the knee in 1925, at which time it seemed that skirts would not return to ankle-length again. Besides being influenced by fashion, Geoffre wanted to change her body to please her fianc. The proximate reason for Geoffres operation was apparently the fact that her fianc admired shapely limbs.39 According to her lawyer, she had noted a coolness in her fiancs manner, which had caused her marriage to be postponed, and she was convinced that this coolness was due to the ugly appearance of her legs.40 I suggest that there are two other possible reasons that Geoffre sought cosmetic surgery: she wanted to ensure her success professionally and she was attempting to improve her class status. Geoffre was a woman attempting to rise in societyshe left her job as one of the most important assistants at a house of fashion to open her own business. There were opportunities for women to rise into the upper ranks of Parisian fashion in the 1920s and women designers came to be preferred by many female clients, who viewed them as in touch with their needs. Coco Chanel had begun as a day laborer in fashion houses and Madeleine Vionnet had begun as an assistant at the Callot sisters, so perhaps Geoffre hoped that she, too, could rise to prominence through hard work and the proper body.41 As many contemporaries noted,

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Figure 3: Vogue, January 1926

and as I discuss below, being considered attractive was necessary for social advancement and in certain jobs in the public eye. Geoffres lawyer himself made references to Geoffres need to be attractive to get ahead in the fashion world. Coco Chanels attractiveness played a role in her success: she credited her ability to sport her own creations to advantage as the way she built her career.42 In addition, Chanels success as a public figure created the new celebrity couturire, and this put additional pressure upon designers such as Geoffre to be attractive, public personages. Since Paris was already the fashion capital of the world and Parisiennes were legendary for their chicness, it would have been especially important for a Parisian designer to look as beautiful and stylish as possible. Had Geoffres surgery been successful, her fashionable body may have helped her rise in class. The relationship between the body, fashion, and class is complex. The culture of slimness began in the upper classes, and developing a thin body was thus a way of marking oneself as being from a higher class.43 Fashion became democratized with the growth of the readyto-wear industry; although the new look had emerged within the fash-

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ion elite prior to World War I, working- and middle-class women embraced the new fashions only after the war began. As one commentator explained, Until this time, fashion remained the privilege of a certain part of society; at this point, it penetrated all social classes, from la plus grande aristocrate to the humblest village dweller.44 With every Yvette, Franoise, and Sophie parading around in knockoffs of the latest fashion, it was more difficult to use clothing to indicate class. In the 1920s, slimness was associated with the upper-class body in magazines and movies, and by reducing the size of her calves, Geoffre may have hoped to appropriate an upper-class body. Many Europeans used cosmetic surgery to alter their racial appearances, and perhaps new surgical procedures could aid individuals in passing as higher class.45 A French plastic surgeon reported on a case in 1931 in which a young man had a nose job for professional reasons, because an old fracture of the nose gave his face a somewhat vulgar appearance.46 Ironically, the outcome of her quest for fashion may have made Geoffre unfashionable and, in fact, disturbing to her contemporaries. As her lawyer argued, to keep up with fashion, a woman had to go out to theaters and elegant receptions, horse races, and spas.47 According to him, a woman who walked with a crutch could not do such things. And indeed, a woman with an amputated leg might very likely have been disturbing to contemporaries of the interwar period. Many soldiers came back from World War I without limbs, and some critics agonized over this fact; they believed it would deprive men of their masculinity, since they would not be able to perform manual labor. This phenomenon spurred the development of prostheses, which allowed war-wounded men to do physical work; the prostheses, however, did not look like real limbs. The injured man remained marked by his difference, but presumably, the important thing was that he could work.48 A woman with an amputated leg might have conjured images of wounded soldiers from the war, thus blurring gender boundaries in a different way than the androgynous flapper. Moreover, femininity, unlike masculinity, was not related to the ability to work but to the ability to attract men sexually. Given the primitive prostheses of the 1920s, there was no way society could re-femininize Geoffres body. As her lawyer dramatically stated, she became a poor mutilated being for whom existence is completely ruined.49

The Trauma of Ugliness and the Establishment of Cosmetic Surgery

Although the Italian surgeon Tagliocozzi reconstructed noses cut off in duels during the Renaissance, plastic surgery did not develop substantially or become popular until the late nineteenth century; by the time of

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this trial, nose jobs, breast lifts and reductions, and face lifts had all been performed. World War I in particular aided its development, as limbs and faces of wounded soldiers had to be reconstructed. After the war was over and soldiers could no longer provide enough business, plastic surgeons sought new clients. Cosmetic surgeons in particular had to work hard to establish themselves as legitimate medical practitioners since they were threatened by the presence of charlatans without medical training. While the altruistic value of reconstructing the mangled faces of soldiers was clear to contemporaries, that of purely aesthetic surgery was not. In his argument, Dujarriers lawyer tried to convince the judge that his client operated on Geoffre for altruistic reasons, to help ease her psychic pain. However, the judge ruled that doctors did not have the right to perform operations for purely cosmetic reasons; he upheld the idea that cosmetic surgery was the province of the vain.50 The decision attracted great public attention and alarmed cosmetic surgeons in particular because it was the first legal ruling on cosmetic surgery and because the surgeon was well known. In the wake of this decision, cosmetic surgeons in France banded together to defend their profession to the public. The General Association of French Doctors asked Dr. Dartigues, a former president of the Society of Parisian Surgeons, to write a report on the right to practice aesthetic surgery. Dartigues presented his report in March 1929, and the association, which represented 10,000 doctors, adopted his conclusions unanimously. In April 1930, Dartigues and Dr. Claou founded The French Scientific Society of Reconstructive, Plastic, and Cosmetic Surgery and began publishing a journal that May. This organization held the first Congress of Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery in October 1930 and 100 members from France and other countries attended. This organization was international in scope: founding subscriptions came in from Germany, Argentina, Belgium, the United States, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Venezuela, among other countries.51 Many medical professionals faulted the court for making a decision based on inadequate knowledge of the field of cosmetic surgery. Surgeons set out to convince the public and the courts of the altruistic purpose of cosmetic surgery, writing articles in the journal of the new society and publishing numerous books. The name of The French Scientific Society of Reconstructive, Plastic, and Cosmetic Surgery itself indicates one tactic cosmetic surgeons used to defend themselves: they argued that one could not separate cosmetic surgery from plastic or reconstructive surgery. At the first meeting of the society, Dartigues explained the societys title: Why reconstructive, plastic, and cosmetic? First because these names are . . . indissolubly united; these three terms are only one in reality: when one does reconstructive surgery, one is doing plastic and cosmetic surgery at

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the same time, as when one does these last two, one is doing a reconstructive action.52 Dartigues, Claou, and others argued, for example, that in fixing a club foot, an orthopedic surgeon was also doing cosmetic surgery, and that an operation to fix hare lip was a cosmetic operation as much as a therapeutic one, since health was not immediately at stake. This was not one of the major arguments doctors used to defend their profession, however. Cosmetic surgeons primarily defended themselves by arguing that they aided people, especially women, by protecting them in a harsh economic climate in which looks were important for social advancement and for obtaining and retaining employment. They argued, secondarily, that they aided people in severe psychological distress. These two aspects were often intertwined in the surgeons rhetoric: the failure to get a job or derision from others could cause mental disturbances. The lower court judge had sided with the arguments of Geoffres lawyer, Thry, who argued that a doctor should not operate on a healthy body. Thry proposed that One does not have the right to operate. . . except if one is in the presence of an illness which cannot be cured by medical treatment, when one is in the presence of suffering so great that the patient cannot stand it, and then argued that Geoffre did not have such an illness.53 Dujarriers lawyer, William Thorp, argued that because Geoffre was not healthy, Dujarrier was acting honorably and altruistically. Thorp claimed that her legs really were invaded by fat54 and called them a painful deformity.55 He also noted that one of her calves had been much bigger than the other. He compared this case to a hypothetical situation in which a woman had four breasts and asked whether the court would tell the doctor not to remove them and say you, Miss, keep your four breasts.56 Thorp went on to state that aside from the question of whether or not Geoffres legs were so fat as to constitute a physical illness, her resulting dissatisfaction with her body caused her to have severe psychological trauma which could be cured only by surgery. Arguing that his client benevolently operated on a woman who may have been physically healthy (albeit with abnormally fat legs), but was mentally ill due to her distress over her fat calves, Thorp presented Dujarrier as a compassionate doctor who came to the aid of Geoffre when she drew a revolver and threatened suicide, apparently saying, I will kill myself . . . if I have to keep my fat calves!57 Thorp argued that the operation may not have been warranted by a therapeutic necessity, but was imposed by a moral obligation.58 He emphasized the intense shame a woman with ugly legs could have, and how this could lead to madness: at a time when women, testing the rigor of the seasons, reveal themselves in all weather from feet to waistline and from head to waistline, a woman whose legs are fat or deformed is infinitely unhappy, and if she has defective legs like those of Mme Le Guen,

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she finds herself constrained to wearing long dresses like our grandmothers wore, because she has to avoid the looks of men and the mocking smiles of women. . . . Hefty legs, saggy breasts cause psychic states ranging from simple unhappiness to neurasthenia, up to madness and suicide.59 By arguing that bodies deemed unattractive by their (female) owners could lead to madness, Thorp staked out a professional place for plastic surgery. It was surgery, not psychoanalysis, that could cure the (female) patient of psychological ills. He supported this claim by noting that a psychiatrist had sent another woman in for plastic surgery in 1927 after she was so haunted by the shape of her legs that she could not go out. Sander Gilman argues that the status of cosmetic surgery in the last half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century was undermined because its goal was not to correct physical pathologies such as the cleft palate but to deal with purely external characteristics. To present itself as noble, and to prove its right to operate on healthy bodies, plastic surgery had to show itself as a humane field.60 According to Gilman, the primary way in which doctors did this was by claiming that they could cure the psyche by operating on the body. By the 1920s, patients could be labeled as having dysmorphophobia, a term coined by clinical psychiatrist Enrico Morselli in 1891. Dysmorphophobia was classified as a patients fixation on specific qualities of the body, leading to unhappiness. The idea that plastic surgery could treat depression stemming from bodily imperfections was widespread by the 1920s.61 Dujarriers lawyer clearly drew on these ideas; however, his comments do not indicate that Geoffres unhappiness was based on some personal misperception of her body. Rather, it was the mocking smiles and looks from others that ostensibly drove one to madness. In the end, his claim was that surgery could cure the psyche by sculpting the body into a shape conforming to social norms. Thorps argument was not just about the relationship between mind and body; it was about the relationship between mind, body, and society. In their defense of cosmetic surgery, many surgeons at this time noted the important social role it played, arguing that many men and women turned to it to maintain their places in certain professions, such as acting or selling luxury goods in department stores. Dr. Suzanne Nel, an ardent advocate for cosmetic surgery who even spoke to the Reichstag on the subject in 1929, had originally been a dermatologist but had become interested in plastic surgery after a French actress had shown her a facelift she had gotten in America. After Nel operated on a woman who could not earn her living because she looked old, and the woman was made so much younger looking that she found a new job right away, Nel decided to devote herself full-time to plastic surgery. Her 1926 book, La Chirurgie Esthetique: Son Role Social (Cosmetic Surgery: Its Social Role) told story af-

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ter story about clients who could not find work or spouses due to their looks. With her aid, apparently, all were able to find good jobs and/or spouses and live happily ever after. For example, there was the formerly beautiful sixty-year-old woman who was a sales representative selling luxurious objects. Despite excellent references, experience, and wonderful taste, companies would not hire her to represent their new products. The woman fainted the day that Nel performed the first operation because she was in such a bad state financially that she had not eaten for forty-eight hours. After a few operations, the woman earned her living more easily than she had fifteen years earlier.62 Another client was fifty-five years old, had been married six years, and was the father of four young children. He was an insurance agent who found that his business was shrinking while that of his young colleagues was increasing. He went to Nel and had three operations, causing him to appear much younger and improving his sales.63 After recounting many such stories, Nel concluded that cosmetic surgery was important from a social point of view. Nel was far from alone in stressing the social need for cosmetic surgery. In 1933, Dr. Bourgoin also argued for the social usefulness of the profession. There exists . . . a very important argument in favor of cosmetic surgery, and that is its material utility. It is undeniable that the ugliness of a manand even more that of a womanis an obstacle in the struggle for existence. . . . Unconsciously cruel, bosses always choose, among several candidates, those whose physical image is the most inviting.64 In fact, so central did surgeons consider the social aspect of beauty to be that Dartigues defined cosmetic surgery as all operations used to remedy all disorders, congenital or acquired, that can prejudice. . . the social value of the individual.65 From this perspective, cosmetic surgery did not exist to achieve some sort of eternal, unchanging vision of beauty; it existed to fix whatever others found ugly in a person. Doctors connected the need to appear young and attractive for the sake of employment to modernity. As Dr. Passot noted in 1931, cosmetic surgery was born from the needs of modern life.66 He stated that he had operated on many employees who were in danger of losing their jobs because they seemed too old, remarking that there appeared to be a secret agreement among the heads of personnel of Parisian department stores to reject all applicants who seemed to be older than forty. Thus, cosmetic surgery was no longer reserved for coquettes, but was a social necessity which responded to an increased need, in modern times, to appear young.67 Nel dated the increase in social pressure to be attractive to 1918, when the difficult economic times after the war heightened the struggle for existence and employment. The legitimacy of aesthetic surgery was hotly debated among lawyers

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as well as surgeons. A lawyers conference held in 1930 treated the question, Can a surgeon be held liable for damages if he performs an aesthetic operation at a clients demand and the operation has regrettable consequences, if he has not committed a professional fault? and concluded that the surgeon could not be held responsible.68 One primary reference point in the debates among lawyers was the principle of proportion between the affliction to be cured and the desired outcome. In his 1930 doctoral thesis on reconstructive and plastic surgery, Henry Feni discussed this issue in detail, noting that the principle of risks run being in proportion to the possible outcome was a common legal principle which was applicable to the Dujarrier case. However, Feni believed that the Dujarrier judgment went too far, condemning all types of procedures stemming from diverse circumstances. Indeed, he stated that his thesis had been inspired by his disapproval of the Dujarrier verdict. Feni argued that in weighing the ends and the means, one must look at the social context of the operation. He suggested that the application of the principle of means versus ends should be modified in consideration of new needs, and that the disproportion between the means and ends of cosmetic surgery would be leveled if personal utility and social value were taken into account.69 While intervening in the body to cure something simply for the sake of beauty may have seemed out of proportion to some, Feni believed one needed to consider that a physical defect could have a negative influence on an individuals social life and could provoke psychological states with severe consequences, even ending in suicide. One also needed to take into account the fact that in modern life, it was difficult for people with physical defects to find jobs in many professions. Referring specifically to the Dujarrier case, he stated, Could one forbid this surgeon to take from this young woman . . . the abundant fat that surrounds her calves, when her means of existence are conditioned by the beauty of her physique?70 He continued, Could one forbid him further, to erase the wrinkles of that actress who sees a decrease in the number of her engagements as she increases in age? Or to lift the breasts of a painters model? Or to repair the hares lip of that young man who ardently desires to become a soldier?71 In the end, Feni argued, if one took social and psychological factors into consideration, the use of cosmetic surgery could not be juridically attackable. Attorney Simone Gards made similar arguments in 1932, as the debate over cosmetic surgery continued even after the appeals court overturned the initial decision. She, too, noted that from a practical and legal point of view, one could use the formula that the operation is legal when the risk run is proportional to the advantage sought, it is illicit in the opposite case.72 She argued that the foreseeable risks of surgery should be judged against the social and moral advantages that were sought, and stated that the origi-

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nal decision against Dujarrier was not legally justified.73 Both Gards and Feni, as well as other lawyers, noted that courts often provided damages to those whose looks were harmed in an accident, recognizing that this could diminish their future earnings and happiness. They argued that this precedent proved that cosmetic surgery provided concrete advantages which could outweigh the risks of surgery. Rather than critiquing societys emphasis upon youth and beauty, doctors encouraged the belief that ugliness could be considered a sickness. As Dartigues wrote, Sickness is an ugliness, but ugliness is also a sickness: it is detrimental to the individual. . . . 74 Dr. Bourgoin went further, marking ugliness as a sickness because of its effects on others. It isnt an exaggeration to say that ugliness is a torment. . . not only for those who are afflicted with it, but even more for those who are the spectators. . . . [U]gliness . . . is a sickness. 75 For Bourgoin and many other surgeons, being ugly had a negative psychological effect upon the sufferer: In the struggle for existence, more and more fierce, an adequate physique has become absolutely necessary, not only because the ugly sometimes inspire hostility, but even more because ugliness takes away from man the confidence in himself that is indispensable.76 Dartigues wrote, Who can deny that the carriers of physical disgraces suffer horribly at the bottom of their hearts, and that these disgraces dont influence their character to the point of plunging them into neurasthenia and pessimism?77 Dr. Payot suggested that beauty was essential for mental health, particularly for women: To preserve mental health, humans cannot do without physical health. . . . We will dare to say that there is also the need for beauty, for the woman in particular.78 By curing unattractiveness, a surgeon could restore a man or womans confidence and bring about positive psychological changes. Bourgoin described a play from the early 1930s about a woman who was so ugly that she turned to crime. One night, facing discovery as she was robbing the apartment of a plastic surgeon, she broke a leg while fleeing. Believing that her horrible ugliness was the cause of her degradation, the surgeon took her to his clinic and gave her a pleasing face. As the woman began to know happiness, her character improved and she became honest.79 The judge in the first trial listened to arguments from Dujarriers lawyer that the doctor had acted because of Geoffres depressed and suicidal state. In his decision, he stated that because of her depression, Dujarrier should not have acted as quickly as he had; he should have sent Geoffre to a psychiatrist instead of operating on her. Cosmetic surgeons did not agree that psychiatric help was the answer; many believed that psychiatrists could not cure certain obsessions about the body, which cosmetic surgeons could solve by changing the body itself. Plastic surgeon Dr. Wladyslaw

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Dobrzaniecki noted in 1932 that In certain cases of grave mental depression, which may even give rise to ideas of suicide, a plastic operation may be the only effective treatment possible.80 Commentators proposed that men could benefit from cosmetic surgery in their professions, but recognized that women were the primary beneficiarieswomen were judged by their looks more than men were, and they could improve their positions in the marriage market. One author argued that cosmetic operations done on the face and body, to correct such injuries as burn scars on nubile young girls, could increase the attraction between the sexes and thus allow couplings that would not happen otherwise. Thus, he concluded, surgery could become a factor in maternity.81 Should a young girl with a small physical flaw have to renounce love, marriage, and the social function, so noble and so moral, of maternity? Henry Feni asked.82 Simone Gards also implied that surgery helped young people to find love and found households. If one went to a clinic, Gards wrote, one would see very ugly young men and women whose monstrosity was repellent. These unfortunate souls asked cosmetic surgery for the right to be like others, the right to be loved, the right to found a home.83 Encouraging people to begin families was an important concern in the strongly pronatalist climate of the 1920s and 1930s. Cosmetic surgery provided an additional benefit for women which might encourage them to bear more children: they could fight the toll that childbirth inflicted on their bodies. Each day, Dartigues wrote, surgery did more and more to repair the unjust punishment inflicted on the noble function of maternity and the physical decline that repeated pregnancies brought to the beauty and physique of young women, such as the withered stomach . . . slackened and covered with stretchmarks.84 As Feni remarked, maternity does not reward women corporally. After childbirth, women experienced a decline in terms of their beauty and the firmness of their bodies. The situation was worsened if women performed the noble function of breast feeding. For these women, cosmetic surgery is most often. . . a true godsend.85 And of course, a mother would want to look good for her child. One of Nols stories concerned a Mme X, who married at age forty-three and had a child. She went to see Nel after her son had wondered if she was sick, asking, Why do the other little boys have mothers who dont seem tired, mothers who have beautiful round and rosy cheeks? Mother, how I would like to see you with beautiful round and rosy cheeks!86 By the 1920s, women were no longer judged for paying too much attention to their looks, they were faulted when they did not devote enough attention to beauty. One author noted that There was a time when the woman who cared for the beauty of her face, or corrected her anatomical defaults, origi-

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nal or acquired, was seen as frivolous and was the object of criticism . . . . Times have changed; today, whatever her origins, whatever milieu she lives in, women try hard through all means to acquire or to preserve beauty, . . . contemporary morals make it a necessity [for her] to treat [her beauty] as her health . . . .87 In addition to arguing that cosmetic surgery could improve the marital prospects of women, several authors argued that women could especially benefit from cosmetic surgery because it could help them compete on the job market. In his 1933 book on beauty, A. Bitterlin noted that women at all levels of society were leaving the home to work. In modern existence, Bitterlin wrote, women could no longer occupy themselves exclusively with the home. In offices, stores, and other workplaces, Woman, weaker than man, needs to find an arm of defense. What better arm than beauty? According to Bitterlin, women would be more successful out in the world if they used their grace and their charms.88 One doctor commented that while it might seem that female emancipation and beauty treatments were be in opposition, women were practical and would find the arms of beauty useful when men became their rivals. Modern women would try to appear attractive not to make sexual conquests but to succeed.89 In their arguments for cosmetic surgery, doctors asserted that society had to abolish the idea that it was frivolous and vain to occupy oneself with beauty. However, they were also careful not to connect this surgery to frivolity, perhaps understanding that society was not ready to accept cosmetic surgery in the pursuit of beauty for beautys sake. Many writers urged surgeons not to operate on people who did not need it. One author stated that doctors had a duty to discourage women who did not have a professional justification from getting cosmetic surgery.90 Another noted that a doctor had to take a clients profession into account; while a film star might legitimately complain about a small bump on the nose, many others could not.91 Doctors did not promote cosmetic surgery for everyone who simply wanted to look better. Surgeons defended cosmetic surgery on the basis of clients needs for it for social and professional reasons. If surgery were seen as something done by superficial people for no strong professional or social reason, it would undermine cosmetic surgerys position as a noble, necessary field.

Conclusion
In the first trial, the judge ruled in favor of the Le Guens, reasoning that Dr. Dujarrier did not have the right to operate on Geoffres healthy body. The court of appeals upheld the decision in February 1931, but based

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on a different reasoning, one that provided the surgeons with victory. The three judges stated that they did not want to condemn the use of all cosmetic surgery, but warned that ugliness must only be corrected with caution.92 The judgment was upheld because the doctor had not adequately warned the patient of the risks posed by the operation and should have obtained a written statement in which Geoffre assumed the risks of her operation.93 Although it is not clear that the activity of the cosmetic surgeons caused the court to change its decision, since critics of the initial decision claimed that it was just one uninformed judges ruling in the first place, the difference in reasoning just two years later is startling. At this moment, cosmetic surgery established its right to operate on healthy bodies as long as it informed the patient of the risks of the operation. While the doctor obtained the right to operate, it was the client who assumed the risks. The first edition of the Revue de Chirurgie Esthtique, in April 1931, noted that plastic surgery was at a crucial turning point during this period: We have faitha confident and robust faithin the future of plastic surgery. We can feel that it has arrived at a turning point in its history and destiny. With all the force of our modest means, we want to help its penetration, its diffusion, to conquer its place in surgical interventions.94 Such confidence in the future of plastic surgery was justified. Cosmetic surgery was indeed able to continue its glorious march against sickness and ugliness95 and is well established today. Americans and Europeans currently see cosmetic surgery as a personal right and are told that they can choose their bodies and thus determine their destinies. More and more women and men attempt to turn their bodies into perfect objects. However, this case demonstrates the dark underside of the practices of body transformation, the dangerous effects of remaking the body.96 By showing how changes in fashion, new ideals of beauty, and the growing availability of cosmetic surgery led to the loss of Geoffres leg, this case illuminates how culturally conditioned many choices are. In 1934, Dr. Alfonso-Ramon Reinoso predicted that cosmetic surgery has an unlimited future . . . [it is] destined to live always.97 But Dr. Dartigues viewed cosmetic surgery as a temporary method for attacking ugliness until a better method became availablegenetic manipulation of the embryo: We have in front of us an enormous amount of work to obtain our goal, which isnt to make each woman a Venus and each man an Adonis, but to abolish ugliness. This time will come. Each future generation will be more beautiful than the one before. Science is beginning to understand the laws of eugenics and it is certain that the moment when we will understand them completely is not far away. Then, and then only, will we be able to

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That time is not quite here, but in the meantime, we have cosmetic surgery. NOTES
La chirurgie esthtique, in Revue des grands procs contemporains: Recueil dloquence judiciaire, ed. Emile de Saint-Auban (Paris: Librairie Gnrale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1929), 191227, quotation on 191.
2 Terms from fairy tales are still used in discussions about cosmetic surgery. A recent ad for The New York Center for Plastic Surgery displayed a picture of a woman before and happily ever after her nose job, stating, Once upon a time there was a young lady who had a small problem. She didnt like her nose. New York Times, 17 April 2000, 8(A). The language of this ad resonates with Thrys mention of his formerly happy client whose legs were a bit heavy. 3 La chirurgie esthtique, 192. Geoffre ran her business under the name of Lucy Gill on the Rue du 29 Juillet in the First Arrondissement. This district has been highly fashionable for several centuries and was the birthplace of French haute couture during second half of the nineteenth century. It was on the Rue Cambon, four blocks away, where Coco Chanel opened her legendary atelier a little earlier. 4 5 6 7 8 1

La chirurgie esthtique, 192. Ibid. Ibid., 193. Ibid., 194. Ibid., 196.

9 It appears that Dujarrier was not tried in a criminal court, probably because Geoffre did not file the required criminal complaint. In a civil trial, the standards are lowerthe doctor must simply be shown to be at fault. In a criminal process, a doctor must commit a specific infraction that is defined much more precisely by the penal code.

"A Grave Judicial Decision Affecting Cosmetic Surgery, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 92:14 (6 April 1929): 1198. The amount of 200,000 francs was worth about $8,000 at the time. A similar case occurred in the United States. Peaches Browning, a showgirl, had both of her legs amputated after a plastic surgery operation in 1928. Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 83. Sandra Lee Bartky, Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, in Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance, ed. Irene Diamond
11

10

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and Lee Quinby (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 6186, quotation on 71. See also Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), especially 185212.
12 Lois McNay, Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the Self (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), 61. 13 In defining the primary issues, the judge emphasized the legal principles of right to physical integrity and the inviolability of the human body. 14 15

La chirurgie esthtique, 224. Ibid., 192.

16 Peter Stearns, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West (New York: New York University Press, 1997), viii. See also Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 185. 17 18

Stearns, Fat History, 160. Ibid., 167.

19 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 21822. 20 Julian Robinson, The Golden Age of Style (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 76. 21 James Laver, Costume and Fashion: A Concise History (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995), 232. 22

Steele, Fashion and Eroticism, 239.

23 Mary Lynn Stewart, For Health and Beauty: Physical Culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s1930s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 74. 24

Gabrielle Nollat, Pour plaire et rester jeune (Paris: n.p., 1928), 22.

25 Zlia Villeneuve, Charme et beaut. Recettes merveilleuses et secrets dune parisienne revels une amricaine (Paris: n.p., 1920), 155. 26 Madame S. Simson, La beaut pour toutes (Paris: Socit Parisienne ddition, 1933), 130. 27 28 29

Steele, Fashion and Eroticism, 214. Stearns, Fat History, 16869. Robinson, The Golden Age of Style, 100101.

30 Anne-Marie Sohn, Between the Wars in France and England, in A History of Women in the West, vol. 5, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century, ed. Franoise Thbaud (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 92119, quotation on 108.

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Mme Vrai-Lecot, Pour tre belle tout age (Paris: La Socit Franaise, 1929),

70.
32 Marylne Delbourg-Delphis, Le Chic et le Look: Histoire de la mode fminine et des moeurs de 1850 nos jour (Paris: Hachette, 1981), 9. 33

Mary Lynn Stewart, For Health and Beauty, 16263; and Stearns, Fat History,

16869.
34 For beauty guides, see A. Lamotte, Trait professionnel de massages de beaut, 4th ed. (Paris: n.p., 1924), 125; Docteur N. G. Payot, tre belle, 6th ed. (Paris: ditions Presses Universitaires de France, 1933), 113; and Leon-Martin, LIndustrie de la beaut (Paris: ditions des Portiques, 1930), 16874. 35 As women worried about the shape of their legs due to the leg-baring styles of 1998, Amy Astley noted that exercise did not have much effect and looked into surgical solutions. The doctor she spoke to admitted that creating a beautiful calf is very difficult. Amy Astley, Calf Master, Vogue, March 1998, 39092. So even seventy-five years later, Geoffre may not have been able to achieve her quest. 36 Mary Louise Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 19171927 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 84. 37 38 39 40

La chirurgie esthtique, 192. Ibid., 201. Esthetic Surgery Hit, NewYork Times, 26 February 1929, 20. A Grave Judicial Decision, JAMA, 1198.

41 Valerie Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, 2nd ed. (New York: Berg 1988), 251. 42 See Axel Madsen, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1990), 69. 43 As Stearns states, One reason for the new attention to weight around 1900 may well have been a new need to define some other corporeal goal that would again distinguish truly restrained people from cruder inferiors. Stearns, Fat History, 249. 44 Ren Rambaud, Les Fugitives: Prcis anecdotique et historique des coiffures fminines travers les ages (Paris: n.p., 1947), 253, quoted in Roberts, Civilization, 67. 45 Sander Gilman has argued that the Jewish nose was viewed as a sign of Jewish degeneracy; the nose job thus became popular among Jews during this period as they felt the need to hide their race. Sander Gilman, Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 25. See this work for an in-depth discussion of use of cosmetic surgery for racial passing. 46

Revue de Chirurgie Plastique (April 1931), 71.

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La chirurgie esthtique, 208.

48 Roxanne Panchasi, Reconstructions: Prosthetics and the Rehabilitation of the Male Body in World War I France, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7, no. 3 (1995): 10940. 49

La chirurgie esthtique, 202.

50 The judge relied upon legal precedent: several radiologists who had caused burns using roentgen rays to remove excess facial hair had received severe penalties due to the fact that the procedures were performed solely for cosmetic purposes. For this reason, radiologists stopped using such treatments (A Grave Judicial Decision, 1198). Until this point, the most important case had stemmed from an incident in 1913 when a doctor used Roentgen rays to remove excess chin hair from a young girl and caused a second-degree burn. The court concluded that the doctor was not at fault professionally, since given the scientific knowledge at the time he couldnt have predicted the outcome. However, the court awarded damages to the plaintiff for the doctors use of a dangerous treatment to treat a benign affliction, especially since he hadnt warned his client of the dangers. See Henry Feni, De la responsabilit civile en chrirugie therapeutique et plastique. Thse pour le doctorat (Toulouse: n.p., 1930), 121. See also Dr. Claou and I. Bernard, La chirurgie reparatrice dans ses rapports avec la jurisprudence (Paris: Librairie Maloine, 1935), 21 24. 51 Dr. L. Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural. I. Para-Chirurgie (Paris: Gaston Doin & Cie, 1931). 52 Dr. Dartigues, Congrs de la Socit scientifique Franaise de chirurgie rparatrice, plastique et esthtique. Compte Rendus (Paris: n.p., 1930), 10. See also Ch. Claou, Propose sur la chirurgie esthtique (Paris: n.p., 1931), 12, for a similar argument. 53 54

La chirurgie esthtique, 203. Ibid., 213.

55 La chirurgie esthtique en Appel, in Revue des grands procs contemporains: Recueil dloquence judiciaire, ed. Emile de Saint-Auban (Paris: Librairie Gnrale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1931), 345404, quotation on 347. 56

Ibid., 362.

57 Georges Claretie, Le Mollet de Mlle Leguen, Le Figaro, 26 February 1929, 3. It was Dujarrier who claimed Geoffre said this; she herself denied it. 58

Appel, 357.

59 La chirurgie esthtique, 21415. The reference to the looks of men and mocking smiles of women is interesting here. Theorist Jennifer Craik writes that fashion constitutes an effective and pervasive means through which women become objects of the gaze and of male sexual desire. Jennifer Craik, The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (New York: Routledge, 1994), 46. Kathryn Morgan argues that there is a male viewer present in the assessing gaze of other women.

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Kathryn Morgan, Women and the Knife: Cosmetic Surgery and the Colonization of Womens Bodies, Hypatia 6, no. 3 (1991): 2553, quoted on 36.
60 Sander Gilman, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 4. 61

Gilman, Creating Beauty, 57, and 12.

62 Mme le Dr. A. Nol, La chirurgie esthtique. Son role social (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1926), 10. 63 64 65

Ibid., 11. Dr. E. Bourgoin, Les possibilits de la chirurgie esthtique, (Paris, 1933), 14. Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural, 161.

66 R. Passot, Chirurgie esthtique pure. Technique & resultats (Paris: Gaston Doin & Cie, 1931), xiii. 67 68 69 70 71

Ibid., xi. Conference du stage des avocats de Paris, 23 December 1930. Henry Feni, De la responsabilit civile, 107. Ibid., 147. Ibid., 14849.

72 Me Simone Gards, LEsthtique et le droit. Responsabilit du chirurgien (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1932), 17. 73 74 75 76 77 78

Ibid., 19. Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural, 23. Bourgoin, Les possibilits, 11. Ibid., 11. Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural, 181. Payot, tre belle, 52.

79 Bourgoin, Les possibilits, 8. Bourgoin names the play as, Il tait une fois . . . at the Theatres des Ambassadeurs. 80

Revue de Chirurgie Plastique (1932), 182.

81 Pierre Sebileau, La chirurgie cosmtique. Les droits et les devoirs du chirurgien, Le Bulletin Medical 37 (31 August 1929), 93134. 82

Feni, De la responsabilit civile, 45.

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Gards, LEsthtique et le droit, 14. Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural, 195. Feni, De la responsabilit civile, 112. Nol, La chirurgie esthtique, 13. A. Lamotte, Trait professionnel, 12829. A. Bitterlin, LArt de faire sa beaut (Paris: ditions Drouin, 1933), 917.

89 Louis Leon-Martin, LIndustrie, 230. Leon-Martin then asked the doctor, The worry about beauty, however widespread it is, isnt it all the same limited to a class, or at least to a condition of fortune? The doctor agreed and said, That is true. The people are really screwed! 90 91

Sebileau, La chirurgie cosmtique, 934. Passot, Chirurgie esthtique pure, 11.

92 "Appel, 345. A similar ruling stands in the French court today. The Cour dappel de Versailles ruled in 1991 that cosmetic surgery can only be justified if there is a balance between the potential harm caused by the operation and the hoped for gain. This is known as the principal of proportionality. 93 An 1889 decision by the Tribunal of Lige first established the legal principle that the doctor needed the explicit or implicit consent of the patient to perform a surgical operation. Ernest Tourraton, Un Facteur nouveau dans lintervention chirurgicale. Le consentement du malade, in Memoires de lacademie des sciences inscriptions et belles-lettres de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1916), 2535. 94 95 96

Revue de Chirurgie Esthtique (April 1931), 4. Feni, De la responsabilit civile, 169. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 248.

97 Dr. Alfonso-Ramon Reinoso, Considerations generales sur la chirurgie esthtique (Paris, 1934), 53. 98

Dartigues, Faisceau scriptural, 196.