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People cannot boast of impressive regenerative abilities. We are not able to recover lost limbs and organs, even torn out diseased teeth, do not grow back in us. However, few people know that, having lost the first phalanx of the finger, a person can easily grow it if it does not get to illiterate doctor. Take a look at the picture above – it’s hard to believe that this finger was once cut off tip.
How a medical mistake helped medicine
Unfortunately, until the beginning of the 70s of the last century, medicine did not I knew about this curious property of the human body. If the person lost part of the finger, they either closed the wound with a flap skin, or sewn severed phalanx microsurgically. IN the first case formed a stump, and in the second – after surgery finger deformity due to scar appeared and decreased significantly tactile sensitivity until its complete disappearance.
Strange as it may seem, the medics allowed doctors to understand the truth medical error. In 1971, to the English surgeon Cynthia Illingworth hit a teenager who had to amputate the tip forefinger. Illingworth did not sew up the educated the wound, and only treated it with an antiseptic and slightly bandaged. A few months later, the boy’s parents called the woman and thanked her for completely restoring their son finger, although they did not understand how this is possible: after all, a guy amputated all of it with a fingernail.
Illingworth herself did not understand. Meeting again with his as a young patient, she was surprised to find that the teenager actually has completely grown the lost part of the finger. Then the doctor realized that the fingertips are easily regenerated. in humans. The surgeon stopped interfering in the natural course of things, and to In 1974, she documented 176 cases of regrowth in children. younger than 11 years of fingertips. Naturally, Illingworth notified about his discovery of colleagues, and very soon to suture wounds in case of loss the first phalanx of the finger ceased worldwide.
A photo from open sources
The new phalanx is no worse than the old
Clinical studies have shown that with the loss of a fingertip it is restored again in about 3 months, however this applies only to the upper phalanx. The boundary between full regrowth and the absence of any regeneration is extremely clear, without an intermediate zone. Say if a person loses the first phalanx and part two, the missing part no longer grows. But with partial loss of upper phalanx by competent physician amputating the rest of the patient so that the fingertip grows as much as possible smooth. Prerequisite: the wound must be open.
The lost fingertip is usually restored with excellent nail, which will also grow faster than others nails and have increased hardness. Fingerprints remain former (also a very interesting phenomenon, especially for forensics), as well as sensitivity. No scar remaining. Initially, medicine suggested that such only children can regenerate, but further research showed that this phenomenon can be observed in people of all ages.
