The idea that a normal, healthy appearance is reflective of a healthy body and mind was common throughout a number of centuries. In chapter one, Judging Appearances in Making the Body Beautiful: a Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, Sander Gilman discusses this concept in reference to cosmetic and reconstructive surgery.
In part of the chapter Gilman explains the history of plastic surgery and how it came to be viewed as distinct from reconstructive surgery. It is in Gilman’s explanation of this history that the concept is revealed, as body altering surgery was usually conducted in order to create the appearance of a healthy body. For example, the reconstruction of noses of those who had
