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Most Potent Potions – The Regeneration RecipeJuly 19, 2007
Meet Lee Spievack’s new middle finger. He’s the guy who sliced off his fingertip but ended up growing it back after treating the wound with the extract of pig bladder. Sounds like magic? Or something JK Rowling would write about?
Scientists are planning on researching whether or not powdered pig extract can actually help humans regrow injured parts of their fingers. Part of the project is to study how certain animals can regenerate missing parts of their bodies. Scientists hope that these secrets could then be applied to humans as well. The possibilities of regrowing missing fingertips are endless, and not just for cosmetic reasons. If people who are missing fingers are able to grow back even a small stub, it could still make a huge difference in helping them perform simple everyday tasks.
The lessons from studying the regrowth of fingertips could someday help scientists and doctors replace damaged parts of patients’ hearts, spinal cords, and burn wounds. All that, however, is far into the future. At this point in time we can’t magically regrow all our bones in one night like Harry Potter did just by drinking a cup of Skelegrow. For now, all we can do is research the potential in limb regrowth and reflect on what happened to Lee Spievack’s finger.
Spievack was helping a customer fix the engine of a model airplane when the spinning plastic prop sliced off his fingertip just above the nail bed. The three-eights of an inch long missing piece was never found. Instead of taking the doctors advice of a skin graft over the missing tip, Spievack did what his brother advised and began treating his wound every two days with pig bladder extract. Within four weeks, he had regrown his finger to its original length. In four months, the finger looked like a regular finger.
Even though the finger looks the same, it is a little hard and has a slight scar at the end. The nail grows two times faster than his other nails, but who’s complaining? Spievack’s outcomes have inspired doctors to try powdered pig extract on wounded soldiers later this year at Fort Sam, Houston in San Antonio. The soldiers are being tested to see if they are able to regrow parts of their fingers that they have lost in Iraq. Of course, from a scientific viewpoint, none of this actually proves that the powder was responsible for aiding with the finger growth. For all we know, it was either a miracle, a strange coincidence, or simply magic!
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