on the thumb
by a donkey. The man pulled violently in one direction, and the donkey,
who had seized the thumb firmly with his teeth, pulled forcibly in the
other direction until the tissues gave way and the man ran off, leaving
his thumb in the donkey's mouth. The animal at once dropped the thumb,
and it was picked up by a companion who accompanied the man to the
hospital. On examination the detached portion was found to include the
terminal phalanx of the thumb, together with the tendon of the flexor
longus pollicis measuring ten inches, about half of which length had a
fringe of muscular tissue hanging from the free borders, indicating the
extent and the penniform arrangement of the fibers attached to it.
Meyer cites a case in which the index finger was torn off and the
flexor muscle twisted from its origin. The authors know of an
unreported case in which a man running in the street touched his hand
to a hitching block he was passing; a ring on one of his fingers caught
in the hook of the block, and tore off the finger with the attached
tendon and muscle. There is a similar instance of a Scotch gentleman
who slipped, and, to prevent falling, he put out his hand to catch the
railing. A ring on one of his fingers became entangled in the railing
and the force of the fall tore off the soft parts of the finger
together with the ring.

The older writers mentioned as a curious fact that avulsion of the arm,
unaccompanied by hemorrhage, had been noticed. Belchier, Carmichael,
and Clough report instances of this nature, and, in the latter case,
the progress of healing was unaccompanied by any uncomfortable
symptoms. In the last century Hunezoysky observed complete avulsion of
the arm by a cannon-ball, without the slightest hemorrhage. The
Ephemerides contains an account of the avulsion of the hand without any
bleeding, and Woolcomb has observed a huge wound of the arm from which
hemorrhage was similarly absent. Later observations have shown that in
this accident absence of hemorrhage is the rule and not the exception.
The wound is generally lacerated and contused and the mouths of the
vessels do not gape, but are twisted and crushed. The skin usually
separates at the highest point and the muscles protrude, appearing to
be tightly embraced and almost strangulated by the skin, and also by
the tendons, vessels, and nerves which, crushed and twisted with the
fragments of bone, form a conical stump. Cheselden reports the history