[The evolution of hand surgery in America].

The beginnings of modern hand surgery strongly reflect those advances made in the United States during the early decades of the last century particularly concerning the treatment of infections of the hand and tendon injuries in the upper extremity. Although Sterling Bunnell fully deserves to be called the father of hand surgery and his monumental book, "Surgery of the Hand", published in 1944 equally deserves to be considered the Bible of hand surgery, we should and must remember other American pioneers of hand surgery, who, from 1900 to 1950 laid the foundation for our specialty.