Algimantas Narakas was born in 1928 in Kaunas, the son of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and later Minister of Interior Affairs of Lithuania. An infection of his left tibia and right hip brought him in 1938 to Switzerland in search of a cure. He was in effect confined to bed until 1946, when with the general availability of penicillin the infections were overcome. The infections and their treatment had left him with a right hip fixed in flexion and a lesion of the right common peroneal nerve. A further blow was becoming, in 1946, a stateless person, when Switzerland recognized the incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union. Narakas went on to secondary education at the College of the Monastery of Einsiedeln and graduated in 1949. In 1949 he was admitted to the Medical School of the University of Lausanne. He graduated with a Doctorate of Medicine in 1957 and worked for a year in the Frenchay and Southmead Hospitals in Bristol. It was not, however, until 1962 that the granting of Swiss citizenship enabled him to sit for and receive the Doctor's Diploma of the Swiss Confederation. After five years in general surgery, neurosurgery and plastic surgery in the University Hospital of Lausanne, Narakas was appointed to work with Professor Claude Verdan, the great pioneer of reconstructive surgery and hand surgery. The work of Verdan and his colleague Simonetta was, in 1969, world-famous, and it was Verdan who offered Narakas the new challenge: of the elucidation and treatment of lesions of the brachial plexus in adults and children, and in particular that of the problem of high supra-clavicular lesions. Narakas tackled the problem with anatomical studies, with the steady introduction of technical advances, and with careful clinical observation. He was a very dexterous and methodical operator, handling tissues delicately and carefully observing and recording pathological changes. His work in this field was taken up by others in his own country, and in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the USA, where Leffert, Kline and others made their own important contributions. His field of work comprised the whole of the surgery of the upper limb, but it is for his work on the plexus that Narakas will chiefly be remembered. He held appointments to the University Hospital of Lausanne and to the Children's Hospitals in Lausanne and Berne. He was a member of twenty five national and international societies, and travelled widely to lecture and to operate. In 1989 the College conferred on him its honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to surgery. All this arduous work was accomplished in the face of physical handicap. It is certain that Narakas owed much of his triumph to his marriage to Colette Kenel and to his happy home with her and his son Alexandre and daughter Diane. His immense activity was not confined to the field of work: Narakas was a polymath, fluent in five languages, and had a true gourmet's appreciation of food and wine; he sailed and won prizes, he handled fast cars well and accurately, and had a keen interest in art and literature. One of the best of Narakas' contributions to the international exchange of ideas and of knowledge was the institution of the Brachial Plexus Conferences in Lausanne. From a small beginning they came to be events of international importance. He died on 26 November 1994.