extends back as far as 400 BC. Hippocrates & Galen (400 BC and 150 AD respectively) mention cleft lips. In 390 BC a cleft lip was successfully joined in China whilst cleft lip operations have been referred to several times during the middle ages.

In 1764, Le Monnier, a French dentist, successfully repaired a cleft velum. In 1816, Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe, a noted surgeon who was a pioneer in early German plastic surgery, is credited with performing the first velar repair. The first American velar closure was performed in 1816 by J.C. Warren