Modified Mussolinis

If a man with a Mussolini jaw is really a Milquetoast, two Mayo Clinic surgeons know how to fix him up--and will, at the drop of a knife. But he must remember the old French proverb: "One must suffer to be beautiful." For the operation is one of the most grisly in all plastic surgery.

The recipe for making little jaws out of big jaws was published last week in the American Journal of Surgery by Drs. Gordon Balgarnie New and John Bernhardt Erich. Before they operate, the doctors pull out the second bicuspids and first molars on both sides of the patient's lower jaw. Then they take a plaster cast of the jaw, work out the whole operation in advance, down to the gnash of a re-aligned tooth.

After the patient is anesthetized, the surgeons cut along the line of the lower jaw. With an electric saw, they carve out a wedge of bone clear through his lower jaw on each side, where the teeth have been extracted. The jaw is then set back, the sawed ends held together by a silver splint, cemented to the lower teeth and firmly wired to the upper jaw.

For about three weeks, while he is fed through a stomach tube, the patient cannot move his jaw. He is then graduated to a brace on his lower teeth, which he wears for about a month. After this, his teeth are polished off to click.

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