Following Cruickshank’s (1795) ingenious (and at first disbelieved) demonstration of the regenerative capacity of mammalian nerves, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a pan-European enthusiasm to redress the nihilism surrounding nerve injury. The first recorded experimental nerve grafts were performed by Philipeaux and Vulpian who attempted both nerve autografting as well as allografting in dogs. At that time, and for many years, allografts were thought to behave similarly to autografts, a belief that persisted well into the twentieth century in some clinics and laboratories. These early attempts at nerve grafting yielded poor results and most surgeons aimed for primary nerve repair despite nerve gaps. Other techniques to allow direct repair involved alteration of position, transposition of the nerve, and even sometimes bone shortening. Although primary repair was frequently possible, after these measures the repair was under tension and mechanical failure was common. Spurling (1945), Whitcomb (1946), and Woodall (1956) showed failure rates of 4%, 7.5%, and 22.4% respectively. Some recovery of function following nerve grafting was documented by Sanders (1942), Seddon (1954), and Brooks (1955). Millesi subsequently published his results for nerve grafting for injuries to the upper limb in 1984. These papers demonstrated more significant recovery of function and highlighted the detriment of delay in treatment to final outcome. Microsurgical advances were central to Millesi’s results, and he emphasized atraumatic dissection and the deleterious effect of tension at the repair site resulting in fibrosis preventing axonal regrowth. Nerve autograft is now the standard for orthotopic nerve reconstruction when primary repair cannot be achieved.
