RESUMO
The fundamentals of skin grafting are simple and well founded and are becoming more and more useful outside of the fielld of plastic sugery. The two major stumbling blocks at the present time are (l) the problem of getting the recipient area into condition to receive the graft and (2)maintaining the necessary care of the graft after it is placed on the recipient area to be sure of its ultimate survival. The problems of knowing when to use skin graft where to cut them and how to cut them are better understood by the younger surgeons being trained today than they were in the past. Cadaver skin has been a practical, though temporary susbstitute for autogenous grafts in severe burns and debilitated patients other tissues and methods of prolonging their preservation in a viable state are still bening investigated.