Plastic surgical operations are among the oldest and have been developed increasingly from ancient times down to the present. However, the age of medical specialization did not begin until the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the specialty of plastic surgery is largely a child of the twentieth century. Most of the operations we do today have been created by plastic surgeons with the past 50 years, but were made possible only by the rapid developments in other surgical specialties and in all of medicine and science.The relationship with other specialties has been an interdependent one, and this is likely to be the pattern of the future. Plastic surgery, bridging the anatomical specialties as it does, must continue to draw bits of information here and there from them and to synthesize these into major contributions of great benefit to all. The specialty will grow in direct proportion to the success of the innovators within it in fulfilling their crucial role.