Perhaps since the beginning of time, human beings have been actively engaged in the pursuit of self-improvement. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that plastic surgery may be one of the world's oldest healing arts. In fact, there is documentation of the use of surgical means for correcting facial injuries dating back more than 4,000 years ago.
Physicians in ancient India were utilizing skin grafts for reconstructive work as early as 800 B.C. Later, in European countries, plastic surgery advances were slow in coming. However, eastern medicine took more readily to plastic surgery, and there are many recorded incidents of skin grafts and reconstructive surgery throughout history in that part of the world.
Overall progress in plastic surgery, like most of medicine, was slow over the next few thousand years, as techniques used in India were introduced to the West and then subsequently refined and adapted for new applications. However, there was progress made in medicine during the Greco-Roman period, and that progress was documented in ancient texts which were disseminated over time throughout civilization.
It was during this period that Roman medical writer Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote
"De Medicina", which layed out surgical methods for reconstructing ears, lips, and noses. Then during the early Byzantine period, Oribasius compiled a compete medical encyclopedia entitled
"Synagogue Medicae". This 70-volume work contained numerous passages dedicated to reconstructive techniques to repair facial defects.
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