Compared with salamanders and starfish, mammals have a dismally
limited ability to replace lost parts. But now reports of
children growing back finger tips and spleens are changing that.
In 1974, Cynthia Illingworth, an English physician specializing
in emergency medicine, discovered that when children
accidentally sever the finger tip (down to the first joint), the
best treatment is no treatment. Cleaned and covered with a
bandage, the finger tip, including the nail, grows back. In 11
or 12 weeks the new finger tip usually looks as if nothing had
happened to it. There seem to be three requirements for
regrowth: the patient must be under 12 years old, the cut must
be above the crease of the first joint, and surgeons must keep
hands off the injury. Any operation performed on the finger
destroys its ability to grow back. The last condition is the
hardest to accept, admits Dr. Michael Bleicher, a pediatric
surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital in