History and Development of Simulation Surgery

THE CONCEPT of reconstructive ‘simulation surgery’ predated computer ‘simulated surgery’ by some hundreds and even thousands of years. As early as 600 bc, noses were being reconstructed with a forehead skin flap by a Hindu surgeon, Sushruta (click HERE for a representative illustration). The early part of the last millennium saw the milestone works of more Indian surgeons and surgeons from Italy such as Tagliacozzi (1600 ad), recognised as the godfather of plastic surgery, who devised a system whereby missing facial tissue, very often the nose, was replaced through a tube graft from another part of the body (click HERE for an illustration [Tagliacozzi (1597): De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem. Gaspare Bindone, Venice]). Tagliacozzi defined his surgical art as follows;

“We restore, rebuild, and make whole those parts
which nature hath given but which fortune has taken away
not so much that it may delight the eye
but that it might buoy up the spirit
and help the mind of the afflicted.”