GRAFE, KARL FERDINAND VON

born March 8, 1787, Warsaw died July 4, 1840, Hannover, Hanover, Ger. German surgeon who helped to create modern plastic surgery. A superintendent of German military hospitals during the Napoleonic Wars (1800-15), he also served as professor of surgery and director of the surgical clinic at the University of Berlin (1810-40). He improved the English surgeon Joseph Carpue's adaptation of the "Indian method" and revived the 16th-century surgeon Gasparo Tagliacozzi's "Italian method" of plastic surgery on the nose. The Indian method uses a skin graft from the forehead and the Italian from the upper arm. Grfe also developed an operation for repairing a cleft palate and made technical improvements in the administration of blood transfusions. Grfe's son, Albrecht, became a noted eye surgeon.