**2. Early treatment of abdominal lipodystrophy and skin excess**

The earliest procedures that addressed excess skin and subcutaneous fat in the abdominal area were performed for functional indications, not for esthetic

**Figure 1.** *Symbols of beauty from the Persian Culture.*

**Figure 2.** *Symbols of beauty from the Persian Culture.*

improvements. Certainly, removing skin and fat (dermo-lipectomy) had the secondary benefit of having the patient look better. In 1880, in France, Demars and Marx reported a large resection of skin and fat from the abdominal wall. In 1899, Dr. Kelly (a Johns Hopkins Gynecologist) performed a panniculectomy with an elliptical transversal incision around the umbilicus [1]. In 1901, Peters described a similar surgery extracting 7450 g from a patient, including the umbilicus, without the undermining [2]. Gaudet and Morestin extracted fat and skin with correction of an umbilical hernia while preserving the umbilicus. Eventually, Babcock in 1916 described dermo-lipectomies using a vertical incision [3].

**Figure 3.** *Symbols of beauty from the Persian Culture.*

**Figure 4.** *Symbols of beauty from the Renaissance.*
