The literature on plastic surgery for 1944 contains numerous contributions on surgical technic, some reports of important investigative work and a few articles dealing with the principles involved in planning reconstructive surgical procedures.
Most important among the latter group is the article published by Ferris Smith in which he urges simplification of plastic procedures along rational lines. He emphasizes that many types of facial disfigurement can be repaired by multiple excision or by using flaps of facial skin from the vicinity of the defect rather than grafts of foreign skin from elsewhere on the body surface. When the loss of facial skin is so extensive that the condition cannot be corrected by sliding or rotating skin from the face or the neck into the defect, then only may foreign skin flaps or free grafts be used. This foreign skin forms a satisfactory functional covering and relieves the tension caused by