In a recent Parade supplement of a Sunday newspaper was an article dealing with plastic surgery.

Man, it's just amazing what those doctors can do with the human form.

They can take you in at one end of the surgical amphitheater and a few hours later you emerge at the other end a completely new and unrecognizable person.

So deft are they at their trade that these physicians can reshape you from top to bottom (literally), and in the process you get, absolutely free of charge, a new personality and a new outlook on life.

Hopefully, those last two characterists are positive psychological changes for the better.

These men of medicine have scalpels, hammers, chisels, sutures et al as their stock in trade and are capable of wielding them all with great dexterity. At least, that's what they claim.

They specialize in tummy-tucks, behind and thigh reducers, face lifts, breast augmentations, breast reducers, and you name it.

They do all these things, and considering the results in many instances, the price (anywhere from $5,000 to infinity) is reasonable when compared with a brief hospital stay.

The main drawbacks to undergoing plastic surgery must be a squeamishness on the part of the patient and a dread of the pain that must necessarily accompany such operations.

As a direct result of plastic surgery many people have launched new and successful careers, and a great number of them have been able to resume already established careers that may have been halted through disfigurement in an auto, or other accident.

Many of those fitting the latter category are show-business types who depend on a good appearance for success.

Along medical lines of a different sort, it was noted recently that a purely homemade heart can be inserted into a human and function with perhaps greater efficiency than the heart which nature provides.

Me, I have been seriously considering keeping intact the brain I have, and having the rest of me replaced.

Keeping of this brain would not be for reasons of any outstanding intellect inherent therein, but for purposes of memory and associations.

The body, of course, would be that of an Adonis, one that might extend longevity to the limit. My wife-mate already is a Venus with arms.

That is a pipe dream of sci-fi proportions, but not completely to be renounced as an impossibility. After all, who knows what the future portends?