Considering that safe anaesthetics and antibiotics were only discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries, it was a truly painful and risky business to go under the knife in the past. But as far back as the mid-15th century nose jobs were carried out using skin taken from the upper arm. More sophisticated skin graft techniques were later brought to the West from India.

Plastic surgery has come a long way since then. It reconstructs what does need reconstructing and improves what needs improving, but it also makes people with no particular problems feel more confident. Bigger breasts? Straight nose? Facelift? You name it and competent surgeons can do it.