Gillies 2.0: senses and Sherlock Holmes

Freshwater, M. F.
Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery, 2010-08-01, Volúmen 63, Número 8, Pages 1399-1400

The latest iteration in the Sherlock Holmes movies arrived in America on Christmas Day. Digital effects allowed its director, Guy Ritchie, to have slow motion sequences that showed how Holmes used his senses to deduce facts about other characters. Holmes was a fictional detective, but we plastic surgeons are fortunate to have been taught Gillies’ principle ‘Observation is the basis of surgical diagnosis.’ This was Gillies’ first principle and the basis of his others. He believed that without a proper diagnosis surgical disaster loomed and went so far as to say, ‘Mistakes in diagnosis due to inadequate examination are perhaps the commonest cause of indifferent treatment’.