Word: ears
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...week. Perhaps so, but when fashion's big spenders came to view the couture collections for spring and sum mer, they were far from calm about what they saw. In the crowded showrooms of Paris last week, high-stepping models marched off the runways to the sound of ear-tingling applause and rustling checkbooks...
...pieces of cartilage, 4 to 5 in. (10 to 13 cm.) long, taken from the patient's own ribs. This causes no disability. While an assistant closes the chest wound, Brent carves and molds the cartilage into an approximation of the ultimate desired shape for the new ear. Then he makes a pocket from the skin where the ear should be and slips the cartilage into...
After initial healing, there may be several sessions of relatively minor surgery to sculpt the ear closer to Brent's artistic standards. "The ear will never look absolutely real," he concedes, "but we can achieve an appearance so pleasing that the patient's psychological attitude is improved, often quite dramatically...
...case file is impressive. Consider San Francisco's Joel Kaplan, 32, who was born without a left ear. Growing up in New York City in the 1950s, when most men wore short hair, he sometimes felt uncomfortable when he was being stared at. When fashions changed, he grew his hair long and carefully combed it over the area where the ear was missing. After moving to San Francisco, he became a Brent patient and is already delighted with the result of his surgery, although touch-up work remains to be done. Kaplan has cut his hair short again...
...about two-thirds of Brent's patients have been children born minus an ear, and he likes to treat them young, before they have to face schoolmates' cruel kidding. His youngest patient to date was three, which meant there was still time for a new ear to grow a bit. Normally, an ear reaches near-adult size by age six. One of his happy patients is Lance Chervony, 5, of San Jose. He seemed untroubled by lack of a normal ear, though it attracted playground attention. Now in school after a Brent operation, he displays his new ear...