There are few minor operations so annoying or troublesome as to undertake to cover a large denuded surface with skin. The average practitioner attempts to obtain large grafts by the use of the razor, but generally after one or two trials he abandons the effort in disgust. In fact, it requires an expert to do it successfully.
Many cases of extensive sores and granulating surfaces from burns and other causes are left to heal over as best they may, aided only by an antiseptic dressing, to be followed by the inevitable result of ugly scars and generally more or less contraction.
The old method of using small grafts made it a very slow process to cover a denuded surface of any considerable size, and the varied thickness of the grafts made growth uncertain. Larger pieces were tried but failure often followed, until Thiersch introduced his method, which consisted in antiseptically