Most of the chapters in this book were written by Yasargil. Chapter one: "A history of microsurgery" by R. M. P. Donaghy includes a bibliography of the earliest published references on this subject.

"In 1958 RMP Donaghy established the word's first microsurgery research and training laboratory in Burlington, Vermont. In 1960, Jacobson and Suarez, working in this laboratory, performed a successful small-vessel anastomosis using the microscope. Then, collaborating with Hans Littman of the Zeiss Corporation in Germany, they designed the diploscope, a stereoscopic microscope utilising the beam-splitter technology, to allow a second surgeon to assist the operating surgeon.

"In 1966, MG Yasargil attended this pioneering microneurosurgical laboratory of Donaghy, and returned to Zurich to make these microneurosurgical techniques an integral part of modern neurosurgery. He performed the first superficial temporal artery to middle cerebral artery anastomosis under an operating microscope in 1967 and also established a training laboratory in Zurich...." (Misra, Chaudhuri, "The operating microscope," Ramamurthi, et al, (eds.) Textbook of operative neurosurgery (New Delhi: B.I. Publications, 2005) p. 29.

"In October 1965, Dr Yasargil began his training in vascular microsurgery in Burlington, USA [1, 2]. He was 40 years old and already had 13 years of experience in classic neurosurgical procedures [3]. On December 3rd, 1966, he started working on dog’s middle cerebral arteries and in the next day on basilar artery, and he considers this as the birth of microneurosurgery [1, 4]. He also developed the technique for transplantation of the superficial temporal artery to the middle cerebral artery by end-to-side anastomosis [2, 4]. During this time, he also started working with bipolar coagulation, created a few years earlier by Len Malis [1, 3]. In this period, he started to travel around the USA organizing meetings to divulgate and integrate new techniques in microsurgery, which began a series of microneurosurgical courses around the world in the next years [1, 3].

In 1967, he began the microneurosurgery routine in Zürich, performing 103 operations in the first year [1]; the number soon increased, and the outcomes have been published in the six volumes of the book Microneurosurgery [2, 3]."....

"His ingenuity in developing microsurgical techniques for use in cerebrovascular neurosurgery has transformed the outcomes of patients with conditions that were previously inoperable [2]. He conceived microsurgical instruments, retractors, floating microscope, and aneurysm clips [2, 4]. Every neurosurgical procedure performed today has been affected by his work [4]" (Lovato, Araujo, et al, "The legacy of Yasargil: the father of modern neurosurgery," Indian J. Surg., 78 (2016) 77-78)