Plastic surgery in an 'E.M.S. hospital'

20th October 1940: With mounting casualties across Britain, hospitals are stretched, and many patients find themselves in recently constructed huts

Before and after images of Richard Hillary, who suffered terrible burns when his Spitfire was shot down.

Before the war, medical services in Britain were primarily private, under a system where medical insurance was only available to a few. The National Health Service was not yet dreamt of. In the face of pre-war predictions of apocalyptic numbers of ca…