Ian A. McGregor's book, Fundamental Techniques of Plastic Surgery, is now in its third edition. Each edition has surpassed its predecessor in the value of its contents to the surgical reader. Since the first edition appeared, this reviewer has recommended these volumes to house staff, to surgical colleagues, and to other specialists as a splendid source book of general and specific information.
The book is divided into two parts, "Basic Techniques" and "Surgical Applications." In the first part, details of wound care and suturing, varieties of free skin grafts, types of local and remote skin flaps, and details of Z-plastic techniques have been carefully described and illustrated. The author presents valuable and practical hints to escape pitfalls and he avoids an encyclopedic text by including only those methods he found to work best in practice. It is gratifying to learn that some surgeons still prefer the skin graft knife to