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Obituary for Alla LimbergAlla Limberg as a young Plastic Surgeonbuilt Center of Combined Cranio-Facial Trauma inLeningrad, in 1976. At the same time, she becameher father’s successor as Chief of the Department ofMaxillofacial Surgery at the Scientific Institute ofTraumatology and Orthopedics, chaired by ProfessorR.R. Wreden, holoding that position until 1992.Thereafter, she remained an active and well respectedProfessor and member of the faculty of the Universityof St. Petersburg.Alla Limberg was an engaged experimentalsurgeon and scientist, who authored more than 200publications on facial fractures, clefts and burns. Shewas Chairperson of the Plastic Surgery section of theN.N. Pirogov Society and a member of many PlasticSurgery Societies. She enriched all major Europeanand American congresses with her scientific workand her unique personality. Alla Limberg was mostrespected by her peers and the younger generation ofRussian Maxillofacial and Plastic Surgeons. She wasa most charming person, a demanding supervisor andan educator of the new generation of doctors. Thetalented scientist and brilliant surgeon was a worthyrepresentative of the honored dynasty of Limberg.Alla is survived by two daughters, one of which is aAlia Aleksandrovna Limberg, “la Grande Dame” ofRussian Maxillofacial Surgery has passed away in St.Petersburg, on May 19, 2011, at the age of 80. She hasbeen the last member of the famous Limberg dynasty:her grand-father Aleksander Karlovich was the firstRussian Professor of Stomatology in St. Petersburg, inthe late 1800s. Her father, Aleksander Alexandrovitch,was the first Head of a Russian Maxillofacial Surgerydepartment. He introduced autologous bone grafting ofmandibular defects after World War I and described thegeometrics of the rhomboid “Limberg flap” in 1928.His greatest contribution was his handbook on “LocalPlastic Surgery Planning” in 1963, translated intoEnglish by S. Anthony Wolfe in 1984. He died in 1974,at the age of 80.Alla Limberg was born on September 3, 1930, inLeningrad, where she survived the siege during WorldWar II, studied medicine and soon became Head ofthe University’s Facial Surgery Department. After atime of efficient surgical research on bone and dicedcartilage grafts, she was elected chief of the newlyAlla Limberg with her father Aleksander A. Limberg in 1965cardiologist and was buried in the Sredneokhtinskoecemetery in St. Petersburg, next to her father. We willkeep her memory as a wonderful friend and devotedteacher.Oksana Dmitrienko, St. Petersburg, Russiaand Gottfried Lemperle, San Diego, USAIssue 6 www.ipras.org IPRAS Journal 21