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Classic reprint
British Journalof PlasticSurgery(1998),51,579 9 1998The BritishAssociationof PlasticSurgeons
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ~
PLASTIC SURGERY
CLASSIC REPRINT T o m G i b s o n was E d i t o r o f British Journal o f Plastic Surgery b e t w e e n 1969 a n d 1979. This p o e m was initially p u b l i s h e d in Volume 25, N u m b e r 1, Pages 1 2.
Stratified squamous skin It covers every inch o f us from crown o f head to toe And through each tiny fragment the busy red cells flow It's living, pulsing, breathing, percipiently sensing One moment lying slack relaxed, another tautly tensing. It holds at bay bacterial germs, it keeps our innards in That wondrous complex structure that is stratified squamous skin. It's convex here and concave there and hardly ever flat It moulds itself round muscle~, it's padded out with fat It hugs protruding members, lines every crease and crack Tho' often tight there's aye excess when movement needs it slack The curve o f breast, o f buttock, thigh, the cute up-tilted chin There's nothing quite so cuddlesome as stratified squamous skin. There's not another structure quite so well supplied with nerves Whose every little ending some quick sensation serves O f heat and cold, o f wet and dry, the smarting sting o f a lash The pricklings o f fear or the scratching urge o f an itching nettle rash The smooth caress o f a lover's touch, the painful prick o f a pin There's nothing quite so sensitive as stratified squamous skin. It's full o f little sweating glands that help to keep us cool It's not so good for keeping warm since losing all its wool Oh/Here and there there's tufts of hair (Why did God put them there?) But over all the rest o f us we're starkly baldly bare And isn't it a pity that to keep our warmth within We have to cover up with clothes our stratified squamous skin. It isn't only sweat o f course exudes from out each pore That's just the eccrine glands at work, there's apocrines galore Who help to grease the flexures and in many ways complex Produce those subtle odours that attract the opposite sex Tho' many swamp their body smells with deodorants from tins The connoisseur selects by scent his stratified squamous skins. The biochemist looks at skin as just so many amines Polymerizing molecules and polypeptide proteins The general surgeon looks at skin as something to be cut And held in wide retraction while he searches for the gut The plastic surgeon thinks o f all the dollars he can win By grafting and manipulating stratified squamous skin. In childhood, adolescence, youth, it's smooth as baby's bot Then wrinkles, creases, crow's feet form and age begins its rot At first it's lovely, smooth and taut and then begins to flag In middle age it starts to bulge and here and there to sag The swelling paunch, the drooping breasts, the double triple chin. The ageing process best observed in stratified squamous skin. But now's the time the plastic surgeon earns an honest buck He cuts out all the excess skin, takes in a little tuck Peels away the wrinkles with carbolic acid paste Performs an apronectomy to narrow down the waist Undermines his face lifts to abolish double chins Thank God/he cries, for sagging wrinkled stratified squamous skins. TOM GIBSON
579
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ~
PLASTIC SURGERY
CLASSIC REPRINT T o m G i b s o n was E d i t o r o f British Journal o f Plastic Surgery b e t w e e n 1969 a n d 1979. This p o e m was initially p u b l i s h e d in Volume 25, N u m b e r 1, Pages 1 2.
Stratified squamous skin It covers every inch o f us from crown o f head to toe And through each tiny fragment the busy red cells flow It's living, pulsing, breathing, percipiently sensing One moment lying slack relaxed, another tautly tensing. It holds at bay bacterial germs, it keeps our innards in That wondrous complex structure that is stratified squamous skin. It's convex here and concave there and hardly ever flat It moulds itself round muscle~, it's padded out with fat It hugs protruding members, lines every crease and crack Tho' often tight there's aye excess when movement needs it slack The curve o f breast, o f buttock, thigh, the cute up-tilted chin There's nothing quite so cuddlesome as stratified squamous skin. There's not another structure quite so well supplied with nerves Whose every little ending some quick sensation serves O f heat and cold, o f wet and dry, the smarting sting o f a lash The pricklings o f fear or the scratching urge o f an itching nettle rash The smooth caress o f a lover's touch, the painful prick o f a pin There's nothing quite so sensitive as stratified squamous skin. It's full o f little sweating glands that help to keep us cool It's not so good for keeping warm since losing all its wool Oh/Here and there there's tufts of hair (Why did God put them there?) But over all the rest o f us we're starkly baldly bare And isn't it a pity that to keep our warmth within We have to cover up with clothes our stratified squamous skin. It isn't only sweat o f course exudes from out each pore That's just the eccrine glands at work, there's apocrines galore Who help to grease the flexures and in many ways complex Produce those subtle odours that attract the opposite sex Tho' many swamp their body smells with deodorants from tins The connoisseur selects by scent his stratified squamous skins. The biochemist looks at skin as just so many amines Polymerizing molecules and polypeptide proteins The general surgeon looks at skin as something to be cut And held in wide retraction while he searches for the gut The plastic surgeon thinks o f all the dollars he can win By grafting and manipulating stratified squamous skin. In childhood, adolescence, youth, it's smooth as baby's bot Then wrinkles, creases, crow's feet form and age begins its rot At first it's lovely, smooth and taut and then begins to flag In middle age it starts to bulge and here and there to sag The swelling paunch, the drooping breasts, the double triple chin. The ageing process best observed in stratified squamous skin. But now's the time the plastic surgeon earns an honest buck He cuts out all the excess skin, takes in a little tuck Peels away the wrinkles with carbolic acid paste Performs an apronectomy to narrow down the waist Undermines his face lifts to abolish double chins Thank God/he cries, for sagging wrinkled stratified squamous skins. TOM GIBSON
579