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[From Annie Dowie, after 27 July 1875.]

"Sept 27th 1850 Alice born

"Dec 5th Baby's superfluous fingers cut off by Prof: Syme

"Jan 9th 1851 This evening observed a small bone projecting from the wound on Alice's hand, & finding it loose picked it off. It seems to be the fragment which was separated by Prof: Syme at the second cutting, having been left in the bed of the wound through inadvertency. Thus the wound has been kept open since Dec 5th in consequence of this unfortunate mistake

"May 9th 1851. Prof: Syme performed a new operation on Alice's hand to extirpate the basis of the extra finger."

Mrs D explains that Syme made two cuttings on at the first operation on Dec 5th, which explains an expression in the diary for Jan 9th. S

She then st says that Prof Syme fully agreed with

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her father that the stump had grown between the operation on Dec 5th 1850 & that on May 9th 1851. The stump which was removed on May 9th included a bone, but bore no nail. She adds "we thought that Prof: Syme felt a little annoyed about the business, as he had tried to cut as close as he could the first time (ie Dec 5th) when he made first one cutting & then another." She goes on to say that after the second operation may 9th 1851 "we could see & feel how much the stump grew afterwards. It is now (for no attempt has been made to remove it again) a rather large ugly excrescence, certainly containing a bone, but without any nail."—

I enclose three sketches (1, 2, & 3) of the present state of hand drawn by placing the hand flat on the paper, with the pencil halo vertical.

There is certainly a considerable projection as compared with my wife's hand similarly traced.—

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Regrowth of Nail

The Hon Mrs L (the wife of a well-known man whose name I have promised not to mention) sent me word a few years ago of a case of regrowth, & I have just heard from her the following fuller particulars.

[From A. M. Lane Fox to E. F. Lubbock 25 July 1875. CUL-DAR164.170]

"I am sorry to say that the surgeon who performed the operation in my eldest son (Dr Trench Staff Surgeon at Malta) has been dead several years. The extra digit (see sketch four 4) was cut off with a pair of scissors, have after congelation to save pain, in March 1856 when my son was four months old. The excrescence was simply cartilage, growing a little above the joint, with a perfect nail as in the drawing. My son has just made a drawing of his hand as it now is, with the regrowth entirely covered with nail quite loose from the bone. (In answere to my queries she says) The bone beneath does not seem more prominent than in the corresponding place in the other; and I cannot say positively that the stump left after the amputation was less prominent than it now is.

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The inheritance was from my grandfather who died at 84 in 1850; his extra digit had been amputated I believe when he was about four years old, and the regrowth was much larger and more clumsy that that in my son's hand.

She evidently thinks that the stump on her son's hand grew for she always speaks of it as regrowth, though she will not positively affirm about its regrowth.— There seems no doubt about the nail.— It is odd that in this case, as in that of Mr Chambers, the progenitor in each case fully believed that the stump had regrown.—