August 20, 2007 - Evolution or Divinely Beautiful?

Dr. Nicolette Picerno takes a look back and projects what’s new for the future

Critics claim the world’s civilized population is obsessed with beauty: staging the perfect scene, possessing luxurious houses, cars and other pricey object d’art, and of course owning a beautiful appearance. Plastic surgery is by some naysayers’ standards epidemic. But if you think plastic surgery is a modern invention, by all means, think again.

Improving on nature’s work is a practice dating back to 3000 BC when Ancient Egyptians performed aesthetic surgeries with post-op appearances in mind. They were exceedingly careful to suture the edges of facial wounds to eliminate scarring. Even fractures of the nose bones were forced back into normal position by shoving two plugs of linen saturated in grease up their nostrils.

The Roman’s ideas of what was important in plastic surgery were not too far from those of the Egyptians. Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus stressed the idea of the ”beautiful” suture, an approach used over the centuries until the late 1800’s and 1900’s. Plastic surgeons such as Erich Lexer stressed the cosmetic ends of an operation as “an always more appreciated requirement of modern surgery.” Such import placed on the neatness and beauty of the closure, in Lexer fashion, was beneficial to the patient and expedited their return to routine functions following the operation. Beauty, you see, was equated to health.

Beauty and health are still inextricably linked, according to Dr. Nicolette Picerno, double-board certified facial plastic surgeon (one of only three women double-board certified facial plastic surgeons in Colorado) with offices at Denver’s Porter Adventist Hospital on W. Harvard Ave. and in Lone Tree near Park Meadows Shopping Center. “When one sees another as beautiful or attractive, it is human nature to see that person or thing in a positive light. If a parent has two children, one more attractive than the other, the parents will see the more attractive child as the ‘healthier, better’ child, even the more successful or smarter child. An attractive female will have more doors held open for her, more positive job interviews, and get better marks on tests with the same answers, as compared to a less attractive woman. Also, most people judge physically attractive human beings to be good, both physically and on a deeper level. Specifically, they are believed to possess a variety of positive traits and personality characteristics.The subjective experience of ‘beauty’ often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance. This can lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. Therefore, it is almost a survival mechanism for individuals to try to achieve the best outward appearance possible, so as to present themselves to the world as vibrant, successful, worthy people,” says Dr. Picerno.

Dr. Picerno specializes in minimally-invasive mini-facelifts, mid-facelifts, forehead lifts, neck lifts, facial fat transfer, Contour Thread lifts, the Weekend Facelift and eye lifts. She performs traditional full facelifts plus non-invasive treatments including injectable fillers like Restylane® and the latest filler on the market called Juvéderm™, as well as wrinkle-smoothing BOTOX® and laser skin resurfacing.

A period of revolutionary change in medical science took place from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the most major development being the use of anesthesia that enabled surgeons to perform aesthetic surgeries, and patients to overcome their fear and undergo procedures they otherwise would have resisted—all because the pain was eliminated. Anesthesia became central to the practice of surgery following the discovery of ether in 1846. Only a few decades thereafter, in the 1880’s. the technique of using local anesthesia was introduced. Both general and local anesthesia had their side effects—some alarming. While surgery without anesthesia was painful and sometimes dangerous, so were the tools surgeons used to numb their patients. Various kinds of opiates and cannabis were used to knock out the patient and most were less than effective. Opiates and other herbal anesthesia were extremely unstable. When they were too weak they were rendered useless; when they were too strong they killed.

Aesthetic surgery became a context in which the idea of altering of the body was accepted by both the patient and the physician. This set the stage for the development of so many procedures used today that are elective, not medically necessary.

As plastic surgery gained momentum, it was not always widely accepted as in the case of Jacques Joseph, a young German-Jewish surgeon practicing in Berlin who undertook a corrective procedure on a child with protruding ears in 1896. While considered by the child, parent and surgeon to be successful because the boys ears no longer stuck out, simply performing this procedure caused Dr. Joseph to be dismissed from the staff of the orthopedic clinic at the Berlin Charité. His superiors did not condone a surgical procedure being performed for vanity’s sake particularly when the child was not suffering from a physical ailment. What they failed to understand was that Dr. Joseph was not correcting an ailment; he was correcting the unhappiness of the boy. The significance of protruding ears and the playground teasing and humiliation that came with them was clear to Jacques Joseph and his more sensitive contemporaries of the era.

Today, that sensitivity is more the norm than the exception in plastic surgery circles. From BOTOX® injections to full face lifts, people with means and interest are able to modify and improve their physical appearance through the miracles of modern medicine and technology with guidance by a highly trained surgeon.

Patients revel in knowing that whether their dissatisfaction with their looks results from the effects of gravity that inevitably happen over time or if they’re the result of a terribly disfiguring accident, the opportunity to surgically restored their original beauty, and in some instances enhance that greatly. Modern technology sides with Jacques Joseph in that he was not correcting the problem; he was correcting the negative emotions that stemmed from the problem.

Contact Dr. Picerno at 303-744-2300 or visit her website at www.nicolettepicernomd.com.