Hand surgery became an established subspecialty between World Wars I and II. Prior to this time, hand injuries were cared for by various specialists-neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, and general surgeons-each of whom would focus on their particular tissue within the hand. With the nearly 90,000 hand injuries sustained during World War II, military hospitals were created to deal solely with hand injuries, and hand specialists began to treat the hand as a single functional organ. This article briefly reviews the origin of the field and discusses current trends in hand surgery.