On April 23, 1906, Alexis Carrel presented his manuscript entitled "The Surgery of Blood Vessels" to the Johns Hopkins Medical Society. His work on the tech nique of small vessel anastomosis and the transplantation of visceral organs earned him the Nobel Prize in 1912. The use of magnification in operative surgery began in 1921 with the work of Nylen, who first employed the microscope for reconstructive procedures in the middle ear. Jacobson and Suarez published their initial observa tions on the use of microsurgery for the anastomosis of small vessels in 1960, and two years later, Malt...