Ernst Blasius's contributions to plastic surgery

Blasius was a famous teacher and surgeon. Apart from his own writings on surgery and his new methods for reconstructions, such as the replacement of nose, lips, and eyelids, some theses were also inspired by him. His main work is his three-volume Handbuch der Akiurgie, to which he added an excellent atlas, from which a few illustrations are presented here. His books dealt not only with reconstructive problems, but also with almost every surgical event, e.g., amputations, laparotomy, dental extraction, and so on. Blasius's efforts were concerned with overcoming and preventing the worsening of the shape of newly reconstructed noses, lips, and eyelids due to secondarily healed scars, which was the common practice of the great surgeons of his time, such as von Graefe and Dieffenbach. Therefore, his efforts were toward the primary closure of wounds. In rhinoplasty, Blasius extended the forehead flap into three long points, and then extensions were made by infolding them. Furthermore, he mentioned the first use of a nasolabial flap to reconstruct the lower eyelid. Moreover, Blasius laid down basic principles in flap surgery, such as the V-Y plasty and probably the earliest record of the Z-plasty. His publications and illustrations give an excellent picture of the great advances made by him during the first half of the nineteenth century, thus making him an important contributor to the renaissance of plastic surgery.