[A short History of Handsurgery with link to video]

Hand surgery is a combination of microsurgery, osteosynthesis, nerve and tendon surgery focusing on the most essential organ in daily life and in societal interactions: the human hand. A discipline as important and highly specialized as hand surgery must be based on scientific studies and milestones from the past. Our work accompanies the video with english subtitles that was displayed in part during the opening ceremony of the 58th Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Handchirurgie (DGH, German Society of Hand Surgery) in Munich (President of the conference, Univ.-Prof. Dr. R. Giunta). This paper presents the development of hand surgery from its historical origins, focusing on and introducing important characters from the times of Hippokrates, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the two World Wars. In summary, progress of hand surgery is linked to the advances in anatomy, tendon surgery, nerve surgery and closely connected to the necessity of specialized care for upper limb injuries during and after World War II. A well-founded understanding of history and an insight into the development of our specialization underlines the importance of our daily work as hand surgeons and creates new incentives for the future development of hand surgery.This contribution is published in honor of Ulrich Lanz on occasion of his 80th birthday in november 2020.