This book offers a detailed history of plastic surgery procedures and their development from the ancient world, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, up to World War II. The origin of plastic surgery is essentially the story of wound management – the frequent struggle that primitive man engaged in to heal his injuries. The narrative chronicles the rise and fall – and rise again – of the discipline through the centuries. It illustrates the birth of modern reconstructive and aesthetic techniques and emphasizes the ingenuity that plastic surgeons demonstrated to improve wound defects and refine facial disfigurements of various origins, congenital or acquired. In addition, the work underscores the enormous impact that the study of human anatomy had on the evolution of surgery.