If one can find a donor which provides exellent color match, texture, sensation and other special adnexal characteristics without having detrimental effect to the normal function of the body then it will be a kind of dream for plastic surgeons. Even though scar from the donor site is inevitable the tissue expansion procedure has been one of the reliable, safe and efficacious procedures which added the armament for plastic surgeons. Since the introduction of the tissue expansion procedure by Dr. Radovan there has been numerous researches and studies going on and these days we can have more finesse of this procedure. This paper is to review the basic principles of tissue expansion with particular emphasis on history and physiological phenomenon.