History of rhinoplasty - the timeline

Every person named here has an entry in the pioneers roster.

1. Antiquity: amputation, and the answer to it

The specialty starts with mutilation. Sorta-Bilajac and Muzur trace the Indian demand for rhinoplasty directly to "the practice of nose mutilations as a form of public punishment for immoral conduct" (PMID 17967632). Shaye records the scale: when the Gurkha king took Kirtipur in the Kathmandu Valley in 1767 he ordered the noses cut from all 865 males, sparing only the unweaned and the players of wind instruments; the town was afterwards called Naskatapoor, the city without noses.

Date	Event	Source
c. 3000-2500 BCE	The Edwin Smith Papyrus records treatment of the broken nose - the oldest written nasal surgery	Whitaker, PRS 2007 (PMID 17572582); Kaluskar 2008 (PMID 23120515)
c. 1500 BCE	The Ramayana refers to nasal reconstruction after the amputation of Surpunakha's nose	Shaye 2021, citing Atkins, Ramayana of Tulsidas, 1954
c. 1000-600 BCE	Sushruta records the cheek flap in the Sushruta Samhita: a creeper leaf as template, a flap "sliced off from down upward, from the region of the cheek," reeds to stent the nostrils	Sushruta Samhita, Bhishagratna translation 1918, quoted in Shaye 2021 (PMID 34074876)
c. 25 BCE-50 CE	Celsus, De Medicina, on repair of facial defects; Hippocrates and Galen precede him on nasal fracture	Marinozzi 2023 (PMID 36266550)
c. 600 CE	Vagbhata describes folding the flap to provide nasal lining	Shaye 2021, citing Santoni-Rugiu and Sykes, A History of Plastic Surgery, 2007
980-1037 CE	Avicenna sets the fractured septum with a stylus and packing, and bandages the deviated nose with linen soaked in fish glue	Marinozzi 2021 (PMID 33876283)
from 1440 CE	The Kanghiari family of Khanga, Punjab, practise nasal reconstruction as a hereditary trade with a patient registry and signed consent. Sons and daughters-in-law are taught; unmarried daughters are not, so the craft cannot leave the family by marriage	Shaye 2021, citing Almast, 4th International Congress of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 1967
1767 CE	Kirtipur, Nepal: 865 men have their noses amputated on the order of the Gurkha king	Shaye 2021, citing Whelpton, A History of Nepal, 2005

2. Italy: the arm flap, 1400-1599

The Italian method is a family business before it is a literature. Which family was first is disputed in print.

Date	Event	Source
early 15th c.	Gustavo Branca of Catania reconstructs the nose with a cheek flap	Marinozzi 2021 (PMID 33876283)
by 1450	Antonio Branca moves the donor site to the arm - the delayed pedicled arm flap, the "Italian method." Bartolomeo Fazio: "Whereas his father had taken the flesh for the repair from the mutilated man's face, Antonius took it from the muscles of his arm, so that no distortion of the face should be caused"	Fazio, De Viris Illustribus, quoted in Shaye 2021
1502	Alessandro Benedetti (1452-1512) puts the operation into the medical literature for the first time, apparently by examining Antonio Branca's patients. He notes the new nose does not tolerate hard winters and sometimes grows hair	Furlan and Mazzola, PRS 1995;96:739-743 (PMID 7638303)
early 1500s-1565	The Vianeo family of Tropea, Calabria: Vincenzo, then his nephew Bernardino, then Bernardino's sons Paolo and Pietro, who practised 1540-1565	Marinozzi, Med Secoli 1999 (PMID 11624564); Greco, Ann Plast Surg 2010 (PMID 20489395)
1500s	Leonardo Fioravanti (1517-1588) watches the Vianeos operate in Tropea and publishes the method in the vernacular Books of Secrets, breaking the family monopoly	Fioravanti, Il tesoro della vita humana, quoted in Marinozzi 2021; Mazzola, PRS 1997 (PMID 9030172)
1597	Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545-1599), professor of surgery at Bologna, publishes De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem (Venice, Bindoni) - the first book devoted to plastic surgery, with its instruments, bandaging apparatus and plates	Marinozzi 2021; Mazzola and Mazzola, Facial Plast Surg 2014 (PMID 24918702)
1599-1794	After Tagliacozzi's death the operation is abandoned for nearly two centuries. The Faculty of Paris prohibits it in 1742	Marinozzi 2021 (PMID 33876283)

Tagliacozzi's own statement of purpose, from De Curtorum Chirurgia: "We restore, rebuild, and make whole those parts which nature hath given, but which fortune has taken away. Not so much that it may delight the eye, but that it might buoy up the spirit, and help the mind of the afflicted."

3. The Indian method returns, 1793-1900

Date	Event	Source
1793	Cowasjee, a bullock driver for the English in the Third Mysore War, has his nose and hand amputated on the order of Tipu Sultan. A Maratha healer rebuilds the nose with a forehead flap. Two East India Company surgeons, Thomas Cruso and James Findlay, witness it and report it in the Madras Gazette	Shaye 2021, citing Brain, J Laryngol Otol 1988;102:689-693
October 1794	A letter signed "B.L." in the Gentleman's Magazine, London, p.891, describes the operation: wax as template, forehead skin transposed, "leaving undivided a small slit between the eyes. This slit preserves the circulation until a union has taken place between the new and the old parts"	Gentleman's Magazine, Oct 1794, quoted in Shaye 2021; on the identity of "B.L.": Freshwater, PRS 1972 (PMID 19140287)
1814	Joseph Constantine Carpue (1764-1846), after studying the reports, interviewing army personnel and practising on cadavers, performs the first Indian-method rhinoplasty in Europe. Removing the dressing on the third day: "My God, there's a nose!"	Shaye 2021
1816	Carpue publishes An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose, spreading the technique through Europe and America	Carpue 1816; PRS classic reprint 1969;44:175-182 (PMID 4895073)
1818	Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe (1787-1840) publishes Rhinoplastik in Berlin, coining the term and describing the free-graft "German method"	Macionis, JPRAS 2018 (PMID 29685841); Mros and Urzendowsky, Z Arztl Fortbild 1967 (PMID 4869524)
1838	Eduard Zeis names the specialty "plastic surgery"	Macionis, JPRAS 2018 (PMID 29685841)
1845	Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (1792-1847) publishes Die Operative Chirurgie and is the first to attempt to reduce the size of a prominent nose, by external incision and soft-tissue resection	Marinozzi 2021 (PMID 33876283); Rogers, Aesthetic Plast Surg 1976 (PMID 24173725)
1863-1900	Framework enters nasal reconstruction: Ollier's osteoplasty (1863), König's forehead skin-periosteum-bone flap (1886), von Mangoldt's costal cartilage for the saddle nose	Reference list, Shaye 2021 (PMID 34074876)

4. The cosmetic turn, 1840-1904

Rogers dates the origin of aesthetic surgery to Dieffenbach in the mid-1800s but its "true beginning" to 1887 (PMID 24173725). Zhang and colleagues showed in 2026 that the public had got there first: an April 1880 newspaper report describes a New York surgeon turning a man's "pug nose" into "a very respectable nose of the Roman type," and notes that "famous surgeons are not unfrequently offered large sums to perform such operations."

Date	Event	Source
1840	Robert Liston argues publicly for cosmetically motivated rhinoplasty: "prejudice against rhino-plastics would rapidly thaw before the warmth of aroused feelings of humanity"	Zhang, ASJ Open Forum 2026 (PMID 42358659)
1860s-1880s	William Adams (1820-1900) treats nasal deviation by forcible straightening with a retentive apparatus; Robert F. Weir (1838-1927) uses a Dieffenbach-style lateral flap for post-traumatic deformity	Zhang 2026 (PMID 42358659)
23 April 1880	The Daily Register reports on nose machines and nasal surgery in New York - cosmetic rhinoplasty in the popular press seven years before the medical literature	Zhang 2026 (PMID 42358659)
1887	John Orlando Roe (1848-1915), an otolaryngologist in Rochester, New York, publishes "The deformity termed 'pug nose' and its correction, by a simple operation" in the Medical Record - the first published purely cosmetic rhinoplasty, performed entirely inside the nose	Roe, Medical Record 1887;31:621; reprints PRS 1970;45:78-83 (PMID 4902844) and Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1989;115:156-157 (PMID 2643972)
1888	Edmund Carleton of New York publishes the first cosmetic rhytidoplasty, one year after Roe	Zhang 2026 (PMID 42358659)
1891	Roe extends the method to the osteocartilaginous hump - correction of the angular nasal deformity by a subcutaneous operation	Marinozzi 2021 (PMID 33876283)
1892	Weir publishes "On restoring sunken noses without scarring the face," and implants a duck sternum in a syphilitic patient's nose. The alar base wedge resection still carries his name	Weir 1892; reprint Aesthetic Plast Surg 1988;12:203-206 (PMID 3068968)
May 1898	Jacques Joseph presents a reduction rhinoplasty to the Berlin Medical Society with the argument that a deformity causing social or economic disadvantage is a disability. He called the wish to look normal "anti-dysplasia," not vanity	Gupta, Indian J Plast Surg 2009 (PMC2825133)
1904	Joseph publishes the intranasal correction of the hump nose combined with correction of the anterior septum	Jallut, Ann Chir Plast Esthet 2026 (PMID 41038749)

The paternity dispute. Rogers titled his 1986 paper "John Orlando Roe - not Jacques Joseph - the father of aesthetic rhinoplasty," arguing from the publication record that Roe (1887) precedes Joseph (1898) and worked endonasally first (PMID 3526833). Jallut, writing in 2026, concedes Joseph was "not the first" but awards him the title "Father of Modern Rhinoplasty" for laying the foundations of the structural technique and for writing it all down (PMID 41038749). Both positions are current.

5. The septum, and the war, 1882-1935

Date	Event	Source
1882	Systematic submucous septal surgery begins	Pirsig, Laryngol Rhinol Otol 1982 (PMID 6755110)
1902-1904	Killian and Freer establish submucous resection of the septum	Kaluskar 2008 (PMID 23120515); Rudert, HNO 1984 (PMID 6381428)
1914-1918	The First World War produces facial injury at industrial scale. Nineteen surgeons are identified as founders of modern craniofacial practice, among them Harold Gillies, Hippolyte Morestin, Johannes Esser, Varaztad Kazanjian, Vilray Blair, Robert Ivy, John Staige Davis, Vladimir Filatov, Jacques Joseph and Suzanne Blanche Gros Noël	Treger, J Craniofac Surg 2025 (PMID 39504428)
1917	Harold Gillies opens the Queen's Hospital, Sidcup, and develops the tubed pedicle flap; his cousin Archibald McIndoe follows him	Spencer, J Laryngol Otol 2015 (PMID 25858011)
1915	Wilhelm II offers Joseph the chair of plastic surgery at the Charité on condition he convert to Christianity. Joseph, son of a rabbi, refuses	Gupta 2009 (PMC2825133)
2 June 1916	The Prussian ministry gives Joseph an unpaid Department of Facial Plastic Surgery at the Charité ENT clinic under Adolf Passow. He is made professor in 1919 and awarded the Iron Cross	Gupta 2009 (PMC2825133)
1922	Army funding for Joseph's department stops. He returns to private practice and to cosmetic work; Berlin calls him "Nasenjoseph"	Gupta 2009 (PMC2825133)
1922-1935	Augmentation rhinoplasty reaches East Asia: the Nose Lifter clip is on sale to Korean women in 1922; Nishihata and Yoshida publish ivory augmentation in Japan in 1923; the operation is performed in Korea from about 1925 and is popular by 1927; injection augmentation is believed harmless until 1935	Jung, Hwang and Hwang, J Craniofac Surg 2024 (PMID 38775493)

6. The American teaching lineage, 1928-1967

Date	Event	Source
1928-1931	Joseph publishes Nasenplastik und sonstige Gesichtsplastik nebst Mammaplastik in parts, completed 1931: 842 pages, 1718 illustrations. Milstein's English translation follows in 1987	Gupta 2009 (PMC2825133)
1930s	Gustave Aufricht (1894-1980), Joseph's assistant, carries the Joseph operation to New York	Aufricht, "Joseph's rhinoplasty with some modifications," Surg Clin North Am 1971;51:299-316 (PMID 4930522)
1935	Joseph Safian (1886-1983), also trained at Joseph's table, publishes his rhinoplasty textbook. His account of that clinic - six paying observers on a platform, forbidden to ask questions - is the primary record of it	Safian, "Personal recollections of Professor Jacques Joseph," PRS 1970;46:175-177 (PMID 4912556)
12 February 1934	Joseph dies of a heart attack in the hallway of his house in Berlin, his practice cut by the Nazi authorities to a few approved procedures. The German medical press does not mark it; obituaries appear only abroad. His grave at Weissensee was rediscovered in August 2003 and re-consecrated on 17 October 2004	Gupta 2009 (PMC2825133)
1940	Samuel Fomon (1889-1971) begins the rhinoplasty course that trains a generation of American otolaryngologists	Fomon, "Rhinoplasty, orthodox and heterodox," AMA Arch Otolaryngol 1954 (PMID 13123637); "Rhinoplasty. A fine art," Arch Otolaryngol 1967 (PMID 6024500)
1944	Maurice H. Cottle (1898-1981) begins his course at Illinois Masonic Hospital and founds the physiologic school of septal surgery	Cottle, "Modified nasal septum operations," Eye Ear Nose Throat Mon 1950 (PMID 15435533); "The maxilla-premaxilla approach to extensive nasal septum surgery," AMA Arch Otolaryngol 1958 (PMID 13570788)
1957	Irving B. Goldman (1898-1975) publishes the mesial-crura tip technique that carries his name	Goldman, "The importance of the mesial crura in nasal-tip reconstruction," AMA Arch Otolaryngol 1957 (PMID 13393909)
1964	The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is founded; Goldman is its first president	research/associations/societies.md
3-4 February 1967	Baker and Gordon hold the first Baker Gordon Symposium in Miami - the first US meeting devoted to aesthetic surgery and the first national meeting with live surgery. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery forms out of it	Baker Gordon 2026 program; /history/baker-gordon/

7. Opening the nose, 1934-1997

Date	Event	Source
1934	Aurel Réthi describes a high transcolumellar incision to expose the tip	Réthi 1934; "The Réthi incision in rhinoplasty," PRS 1951 (PMID 14875514)
1956	Ante Šercer, in Zagreb, extends the exposure to the whole nasal pyramid - "decortication of the nose"	Šercer 1956; Rev Laryngol Otol Rhinol 1957 (PMID 13442220)
1966-1970	Ivo Padovan, Šercer's pupil, adds septal work through the same exposure and modifies the columellar incision to a V at the crease of the medial crural footplates. His 1970 presentation at the First International Symposium of the AAFPRS carries the technique to North America	Adamson and Gantous, Facial Plast Surg 2019 (PMID 31470461)
1970	Jack R. Anderson publishes the tripod concept of the nasal tip	Anderson, "Twenty-five helpful hints in rhinoplasty," Trans Pac Coast Otoophthalmol Soc 1970;51:113-117 (PMID 5313161)
1973-1974	Wilfred S. Goodman of Toronto, the first North American to adopt the external approach, publishes it twice	Goodman, Can J Otolaryngol 1973;2:207-210 (PMID 4791580); Laryngoscope 1974;84:2195-2201 (PMID 4612270)
1987	Jack Gunter and Rod Rohrich report the external approach for secondary rhinoplasty in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery - the operation crosses from otolaryngology into US plastic surgery	Gunter and Rohrich, PRS 1987;80:161-174 (PMID 3602167)
1997	Open versus closed is argued out in print in PRS	PMIDs 9047208, 9047209

8. Structure, 1966-2006

Date	Event	Source
1966	Tord Skoog reduces the hump and puts it back - resection and replacement of the nasal roof, ancestor of every autospreader and of the preservation argument	Skoog, Arch Otolaryngol 1966;83:283-287 (PMID 5904051)
1975	Jack Sheen publishes "Secondary rhinoplasty," moving the operation from removal toward replacement	Sheen, PRS 1975;56:137-145 (PMID 1144554)
1978	Sheen, Aesthetic Rhinoplasty, first edition	Sheen 1978
1984	Sheen describes the spreader graft: rebuilding the roof of the middle vault after hump removal	Sheen, PRS 1984;73:230-239 (PMID 6695022)
1984	Gunter and Oneal hold the first Dallas Rhinoplasty Course	Rohrich, PRS 2018; /history/dallas-rhinoplasty/
1985	Burget and Menick publish the subunit principle: the nose read as a set of subunits defined by light and shadow	Burget and Menick, PRS 1985;76:239-247
1989	Gunter's graphic record of intraoperative manoeuvres makes rhinoplasty auditable operation by operation	Gunter, PRS 1989 (PMID 2473481)
1993	Sheen, "Tip graft: a 20-year retrospective"	Sheen, PRS 1993;91:48-63 (PMID 8416539)
1994	John Tebbetts shapes and positions the tip by suture rather than by excision	Tebbetts, PRS 1994 (PMID 8016254)
1997	The Rhinoplasty Society is founded by 22 surgeons; first meeting May 1997, president Jack Sheen	therhinoplastysociety.org
2000	Sheen sets out seven milestones of his own practice, from vestibular stenosis to the significance of the middle crura	Sheen, PRS 2000 (PMID 10809116)
2002-2005	Dean Toriumi codifies the structure approach: build the framework, then drape the skin	Toriumi, Facial Plast Surg Clin 2002 (PMID 15062325); Aesthet Surg J 2002 (PMID 19331957)
2004	Rohrich publishes component dorsal hump reduction - take the hump apart rather than off in one pass	Rohrich, PRS 2004;114:1298-1308 (PMID 15457053)
2006	Gunter fixes the nomenclature of rhinoplasty grafts	Gunter, PRS 2006 (PMID 16816668)

9. Preservation, 1899-2026

Dorsal preservation is not new; it is recovered. Lee, Toriumi and colleagues found the American originals in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; Kern went looking for the "historical godfathers" of the push-down and the let-down.

Date	Event	Source
1899	Goodale, an American otolaryngologist, reports lateral and radix osteotomies with mobilisation of an intact vault to lower the dorsum - the "push down"	Lee, Ear Nose Throat J 2021 (PMID 32397810); Kern, Facial Plast Surg Clin 2021 (PMID 33220834)
1914	Oliver A. Lothrop performs the first "let down"	Lee 2021 (PMID 32397810)
1926	Sebileau and Dufourmentel, in France, resect an inferior strip of bone and cartilage to lower the dorsum	Kern 2021 (PMID 33220834)
1946	Cottle modifies the French inferior-strip technique	Lee 2021 (PMID 32397810)
2012	Baris Çakır publishes complete subperichondrial dissection - preserving the soft-tissue envelope	Çakır, Aesthet Surg J 2012 (PMID 22745445)
2015-2018	Péter Pálházi, Rollin Daniel and Olivier Gerbault re-describe the osseocartilaginous vault, the nasal ligaments and the bony vault, giving preservation its anatomy	Pálházi, ASJ 2015 (PMID 25805276); Daniel, ASJ 2018 (PMID 29365051); Gerbault, ASJ 2018 (PMID 29432541)
2018	Yves Saban reassesses the push-down; Rollin Daniel names the movement in "The Preservation Rhinoplasty: A New Rhinoplasty Revolution"	Saban, ASJ 2018 (PMID 29319787); Daniel, ASJ 2018;38:228-229 (PMID 29319790)
2021	Abdülkadir Göksel publishes piezoelectric osteotomy in preservation rhinoplasty	Göksel, Facial Plast Surg Clin 2021 (PMID 33220846)
2022-2024	Toriumi hybridises the two schools: structural preservation rhinoplasty, then a direct comparison of dorsal preservation against structural technique	Toriumi, PRS 2022 (PMID 35259146); Facial Plast Surg Clin 2024 (PMID 39341676)
2026	"Preservation Rhinoplasty: A Decade of Progress and Technical Refinement"	Aesthet Surg J 2026 (PMID 42455864)
5-7 February 2026	The 60th and final Baker Gordon Symposium, Miami	/history/baker-gordon/

Where the sources disagree

Question	Positions in print
When did Sushruta live?	1000-800 BC (Champaneria, Ann Plast Surg 2014, PMID 23788147); 600 BC (Shaye 2021); 500 BC (Eisenberg 1982)
Branca or Vianeo first?	Branca first, the conventional reading (Marinozzi 2021); Vianeo contemporary or earlier (Greco, Ann Plast Surg 2010)
Tagliacozzi's birth year	1545 (Shaye 2021; PRS 2019, PMID 30859024); 1546 (J Med Biogr 2017, PMID 26385976); 1547 (Marinozzi 2021, which prints both 1546 and 1547)
Father of aesthetic rhinoplasty	Roe, 1887, on priority and on the endonasal route (Rogers 1986, PMID 3526833); Joseph, on systematisation and publication (Jallut 2026, PMID 41038749)
Roe's dates	1848-1915 (Rogers 1986; Zhang 2026); 1849-1915 (secondary sources)

Method

PubMed searched 2026-09-09: history-of-rhinoplasty terms, historical-article and biography publication types, and author searches for every named surgeon; 534 records screened. Open-access full texts read through Europe PMC: PMC8270507 (Shaye 2021), PMC8677642 (Marinozzi 2021), PMC13293058 (Zhang 2026), PMC2825133 (Gupta 2009). Every row names either the original publication or the history paper that carries the claim. No row rests on Wikipedia.