HISTORICAL NOTES Rhinoplastic surgery is not a new art. It was practiced thousands of years ago by the Hindus in India, where criminals had their noses cut off as a punitive measure. Even in those ancient times the art of the plastic surgeon was indispensable. At the beginning of the Christian era, surgeons were shifting tissues from the forehead for plastic repair of the nose, around which organ most plastic surgical procedure has centered. In the second century lost portions of the nose were being crudely restored, and by the sixteenth century the ingenious Italian Tagliacozzi was performing rhinoplastic operations with an amazing skill for the period. Surgeons of America and Europe who followed him became enthusiastic over the plastic art and developed it to its present state. The World War was responsible for the greatest impetus plastic reparative surgery has ever received. The brilliant results obtained by plastic surgeons