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Often found in glossarial contexts in reference to quotation 1 below, the rare humorous expression flesh-tailor designates one who sews up wounds, i.e., a surgeon—also, in later use, a plastic surgeon.
It is likely that this expression has, in the course of time, been coined on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another.
—Cf. also the slang expression fang-farrier, which designates a dentist.
The expression flesh-tailor occurs, for example, in the gossip column Rush & Molloy, by George Rush and Joanna Molloy, published in the Daily News (New York City, New York, USA) of Sunday 27th July 1997 [page 14, column 3]—Jackie Mason (Yacov Moshe Maza – 1928-2021) was a U.S. comedian:
Jackie Mason is looking as lean as some nice brisket now that he’s had some plastic surgery. The comedian admits he recently went to society flesh-tailor Dr. Dan Baker to have his wattles and bags trimmed.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the expression flesh-tailor that I have found:
—Note: I have not included the glossarial occurrences:
1-: From ’Tis Pitty Shee’s a Whore. Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants, at The Phænix in Drury-Lane (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes for Richard Collins, 1633), by the English playwright and poet John Ford (1586-1639?) [Act 3, sig. F4v]:
[Enter Grimaldi with his Rapier drawne, and a Darke-lanthorne.
[…]
[Hee lies downe.
[Enter Bergetto and Philotis disguis’d, and after Richardetto and Poggio.
Ber. Wee are almost at the place, I hope Sweet-heart.
Gri. I heare them neere, and heard one say Sweet-heart,
’Tis hee; now guide my hand some angry Iustice
Home to his bosome, now haue at you sir. [strikes Ber. & Exit.
Ber. Oh helpe, helpe, here’s a stich fallen in my gutts,
Oh for a Flesh-taylor quickly.
—Note: John Ford had already likened tailors to physicians in the following from The Louers Melancholy. Acted at the Priuate House in the Blacke Friers, and publikely at the Globe by the Kings Maiesties Seruants (London: Printed for H. Seile, 1629) [Act 1, scene 1, page 13]:
Physicions [sic] are the bodies Coblers, rather the Botchers 1 of mens bodies; as the one patches our tatterd clothes, so the other solders 2 our diseased flesh.
1 Here, the noun botcher designates a tailor who carries out repairs, as opposed to one who makes new clothing.
2 In medicine, the verb solder meant: to cause (wounds) to close up and become whole.
2-: From the column The Ring, published in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England) of Sunday 30th November 1845 [page 7, column 4]:
Porky Clark and Smith of Westminster.—These men were to have fought in the same ring with Gill and Norley, for £10 a side; but as no ring was formed, and as it was foreseen that there was little chance of their being able to settle their differences without interruption, it was determined that their match should also stand over, and they returned not as they came, for while the unfortunate “Porky” was on his way back to Weedon, the cart in which he and we know not how many more were riding—the cart being overweighted—broke down. Porky was thrown out behind, and by way of memorandum a portion of the axle-tree, which was smashed, sprung up, and catching him on the mouth, scored his upper lip to the bone, inflicting a wound which it required all the ingenuity of a “flesh tailor” in the village to fine-draw in such a way as to restore his mug to something like its original symmetry.
3-: From the Bear River Valley Leader (Tremonton, Utah, USA) of Thursday 13th August 1936 [page 2, column 3]:
LIONESS GOT EVEN.
It would appear that a certain lioness in Central Park menagerie doesn’t care to be referred to as a sissy. Captain Ronald Cheyne-Stout who developed an interest in animals when commander of an air fleet in India recently referred to lions born in a Zoo as “sissies”. He said he preferred those taken from the jungle at five years of age or so.
That night he took a friend into a cage to see a lioness raised in captivity. He made the mistake of cracking his whip in the dark. Before he could get out, the “sissy” gave him a ripping which sent him to the hospital flesh tailor to have some seams sewed.
4-: From an interview of the Irish-born U.S. socialite Patrice Cobb Cooper (1909-1995), by Lucille D’Orazio, published in the Boca Raton News (Boca Raton, Florida, USA) of Monday 3rd August 1987 [Supplement, page 25, column 4]:
On the way to Boston to visit her mom, she was in a nasty automobile accident. […] After several operations and a three-month hospital stay, it took another two-years before she was really back in action.
Two years later, going to a duck farm out on Long Island, another accident injured her arm and damaged her face. She required extensive plastic surgery. By the age of 23, she’d decided that would be the last she would know of “flesh tailors” and decided to keep the wrinkles she would earn vowing to laugh at life forever.
5-: From Turning back the clock—by force, by Jeff Mahoney, published in The Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) of Wednesday 3rd February 1993 [page C1, column 2]—Dr. Robert Patterson and Dr. Gunter Born were plastic surgeons:
All of us get our bodies and faces right off the rack—but the seams can be taken in, the hems taken up, the seats let out, by flesh-tailors Patterson and Dr. Gunter Born.
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