[Education and training in microsurgery without experiments on live animals].

A theoretical concept of a training programme for microsurgery is presented. This programme--as an alternative to the presently existing types of microsurgical education using the living laboratory animal--pursues the training of microsurgical skills exclusively on non-living objects. This paper describes the training laboratory as well as four training procedures, each using separate objects with an increasing degree of difficulty and educational benefit: surgical glove; silastic tube; sciatic nerve of a chicken; perfused coronary arteries of a pig's heart. Completion of this programme conveyed to the trainee the same basic abilities as training on a living laboratory animal.