The tangled web of Langer's lines

Langer's lines are often considered to be guides for elective surgical incisions. Interestingly, Karl Langer was not the first to describe the property of skin that leads to the lines he depicted, nor are these lines in common use today. Rather, it is common that relaxed skin tension lines provide a guide for cosmetically pleasing surgical results. Nevertheless, Langer did conduct extensive studies on human skin that remain as a scholarly body of work.