A mask 'tin face' made by dental technician Archie Lane, circa 1918, will be on show at the War and Medicine exhibition to open at the Wellcome Collection in London next month (November).

The mask was made at Queen's Hospital Sidcup, which became the UK's leading centre for maxillofacial and plastic surgery during World War I. From 1917 to 1921 it admitted more than 5,000 servicemen to its wards.

Archie Lane worked with plastic surgeon Harold Gillies who reconstructed the faces of hundreds of men, including those injured in trench warfare.

The exhibition, which opens on November 22, examines the personal experiences of healthcare professionals and civilians from the Crimean War to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Portraits by war artist Henry Tonks (see BDJ 2008; 205: 8), documenting the work of Gillies and his team at Sidcup, will also be on show.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Gillies Archives, Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup.

'The exhibition will show how humankind's desire to repair and heal is perpetually striving to keep pace with our capacity to maim and kill,' said a Wellcome spokesman.