TR' JRNAL OF TRAUMA Coyh 1971 byThe Willias & Wilkins Co. Vol. II, No. 10 Printd in U.S.A. SKIN GRAFTING OF BURNS: A CENTENNIAL A Tri bute to eorge Daid Pollock M. FELIX FRESHWATER, B.S., AND THOMAS J. KRIZEK, M.D. From the Department of Surgery, Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut an surgical discoveries which are obvious advances in surgical physiology or valuable as surgical techniques immediately are recognied as important, conrmed, and accepted into the surgical armamentarium. Some discoveries, thought momentous at the time, fail to stand the scrutiny of the scientiic method, and quickly disappear from favor and even from memory. ther great advances become the foundations of surgical care withou their authors or origins ever being remembredalmos as if surgeons had "always done it that way." The following case report, with its careful observations by a unheralded surgeon, represents a surgical land mark in both physiology and technique; it dem onstrates principles of surgical care as relevant today as they were when irst reported 100 years ago: "Anne T., age 8, admitted into St. George's Hospital, January 19, 1870, under the care of Mr. Pollock. Two years previously she was severely burnt over both thighs from her dress having caught ire. When admitted, both legs were lexed and much contracted. The left thigh was quite healed. On the right thigh, from above the tro chanter down to the outer surface of the knee, was a large extent of ulceration, broad above, and al most ending in a point over the outer condyle of the femur. "The surface of the sore was healthy; its edges had cicatrised to some extent; the margins being thin, and the new-formed cicatricial tissue marked by numerous supericial vessels running over its surface. Since the injury the surface had evidently much contracted. "From its appearance, and from the length of time which had elapsed since the accident, it ap- Presented at the Thirtieth Annual Session of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, Chicago, Illinois, October 8-10, 1970. Address for reprints: Thomas J. Krizek, M.D .. Division of Plastic Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Con necticut 06510. peared to me that the ulcer had contracted and healed almost as much as it was likely to do for many months to come; but as the child was greatly reduced in health, and as the discharge was very profuse, she was allowed to remain in the hospital, although the case was evidently one in which it was hopeless to expect beneit from any of the usual forms of treatment; and it was ap parent that time alone might efect its contraction and cicatrisation. A variety of treatment, both local and general, was adopted for 32 months, without any appreciable diminution of the un healed surface. In May, when I had almost deter mined to send the child home again, I heard. through my late lamented friend and former pupil, Mr. Wallace Bowles, that Mons. Reverdin had successfully treated in Paris such sores by means of transplanting small pieces of skin to the granu lating surface, and I at once decided to test the merit of the suggestion." (3) With these word, eorge David Pollock Fig. 1) , Surgeon to St George's ospital, London, began to describe his irst of siteen Cses of Skin Grafting and Skin Transplantation which he read to the Clincal Society of London on November 11, 1870. George David Pollock was born in ndia in 1817. He was the second son of Field-arshal Sir George Pollock, Bart., G..B., the hero o the hyber Pass.Young Pollock studied medi cine at St. George's Hospital and became a House Surgeon there in 1840. In 1846, Pollock became a ellow of the oyal College of Sur geons and was appointed Demonstraor of Anatomy at St. George's, later becoming Lec turer on Anaomy. He was described as being a very practical and sucessful lecturer, though no a brilliant one, and was said to be "always ready o help any student over the diculties whc beset the path of the oung anatomist. His cour eous genial manners and his abounding kind ness made him one of the most popular of the teaching staf, and many of the sudents o that 862