UNTIL 1939, when Uihlein1 first reported his observations while in Germany, buried cutis and full-thickness skin grafts were practically unknown in the United States. Cannaday * then became interested in cutis and published several reports on the clinical application of this material. Since then, numerous articles have been written on the subject, including both the clinical and experimental aspects.†
One of us8 (S. A. S.), in 1950, reported his experimental observations on the effect of tension in buried cutis grafts. The results of this work indicated that the residual epithelial elements in cutis, i. e., sebaceous glands and hair follicles, degenerated and disappeared if the material was sutured in place under tension. Our clinical application of this principle has resulted in no evidence of cyst or epithelial pearl formation.
Gordon9 reported his results with frozen cutis in 1952. With the use of rabbits, peritoneal defects were replaced with