THE FULL-THICKNESS SKIN GRAFT IN THE CORRECTION OF SOFT TISSUE DEFORMITIES

Although modern experience with skin grafting does not conform entirely with many of the assertions recorded in the old literature, several instances¹ of the grafting of whole skin were recorded before Wolfe,² in 1875, introduced the method to the ophthalmologic literature. The following year (1876) Krause called the attention of the general surgical profession to the possibilities of the transplantation of small pieces of full-thickness skin. Since Krause's³ report, full-thickness skin grafting has been made use of now and then by a considerable number of men but, at present, despite the amount of work which has preceded, its use remains a surgical resource of decided value to only a few surgeons. I wish, therefore, to call attention to the possibilities of the full-thickness skin graft in the correction of severe contractural cicatricial deformities—its most brilliant application—and also to certain other uses for which the graft offers the