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An aspect of early Mexican surgery in the sixteenth century is presented. The treatment of facial wounds by Alonso Lopez de Hinojosos and Agustin Farfán is reviewed. Farfán proposed total nose reconstruction, with a cutaneous arm flap, 18 years before its description in De Curtorum Chirurgia, by Tagliacozzi, in 1597 in Venice, Italy. The chapter on facial wounds by Lopez de Hinojosos and Farfán shows their concern for the final aesthetic results and should be considered the first Mexican publication in the field of plastic surgery.

The first published account of a neurosurgical intervention performed on the North American continent is described. The operation took place in Mexico City in 1561. The neurosurgical intervention was performed by a Spanish surgeon, Pedro Arias de Benavides, on a 13-year-old boy who had sustained head trauma that caused an open depressed cranial fracture and exposed the cerebrum. A description of this case was first published in Valladolid, Spain, 6 years after the event, in a book entitled Secretos de Chirurgia ("Secrets of Surgery").