I may be wrong, but I think that Sir Archibald McIndoe had a hand in stopping this demeaning business, when he was the reconstructive plastic surgery genius of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead during WWII. He insisted that his "guinea-pigs" be allowed to wear uniform or mufti when they were "walking wounded" in hospital or out in town. This reinforced the impression that, hideously scarred as they might be, they were still full members of the community and not gargoyles dressed in ill-fitting red, white and blue pyjamas paraded around to be pitied by the public.
It is to the eternal credit of the people of the little town that they joined forces with him, and all treated the "guinea-pigs" as if their injuries were invisible.
Danny.