ABSTRACT
From early times, the practice of medicine was plagued with other problems which had to wait for solution until there was an understanding of the immune mechanisms of the human body. In time of war, in the days of hand-to-hand combat, the loss of a limb was the lot of many soldiers. The patron saints of the surgeons were St Cosmas and St Damian (Figures 1 and 2) who
were said to have transplanted the leg of a Moor onto the stump of a young man whose leg had been amputated. A number of famous artists, including Fra Angelico and Fra Lippi, illustrated some aspects of this popular legend. John Hunter (Figure 3), who was given the title ‘father of experimental surgery’, was intrigued by the possibility of transplantation, and was successful in replacing a premolar tooth some hours after it had been knocked out. He thought he was successful in transplanting a human tooth into the comb of a cock, a specimen still on view at the Hunterian Museum.
