A brief history of the development of plastic surgery in The Netherlands East-Indies from World War I until the independence of Indonesia (1914-1950).

This study of surgical operations published in the Medical Journal of the Netherlands East-Indies over the period 1914-1950, supplemented with a series of interviews with retired Dutch East-Indian surgeons and their relatives, shows a vivid interest in plastic surgery from World War I until the independence of Indonesia. One can conclude that plastic surgery was performed more frequently and on a larger scale than in Holland, due to a larger number of patients, specific tropical pathology and often a longer patient delay, requiring extensive reconstructive procedures. The East-Indian publications on plastic surgical topics outnumber the Dutch ones enormously.