# Thumb attached to Stomach **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086 "2005-01-04T21:35:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/41 "2005-01-09T03:43:39Z")
> [@Enola Straight](#): > > You sure? I Googled “Napolean Procedure” and got no hits. > “Napoleon Procedure” got one irrelevant hit. Look at [portraits of Napoleon](http://www.cursoarte.hpg.ig.com.br/aulas/imagens/napoleon.jpg) and you’ll see why this name is appropriate for such a procedure… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/42 "2005-01-12T23:19:31Z")
> [@vetbridge](#): > > Medicine is an occupation filled with stress. Anytime you are able to create a belly-meat thumb you gotta go for it. Either that it was an intermediate step to create an adequate vascular bed. This is one of the best three sentence posts I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_LovelyLocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Lady\_LovelyLocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_LovelyLocks)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/43 "2005-01-13T02:01:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Warning. This might creep you out if you don’t like stories of buzz saws, meat carrots, belly hair and strange medical procedures. Seven, this is great! I couldn’t stop laughing as I read it. I don’t know why I was laughing, I usually am very squemish, and easily grossed out. And, I just ate dinner, too, rice noddles with grilled beef and shrimp, and veges and a weird looking but tasty sauce–and yet after reading your post, I am not even vaguely queasy. I don’t know why I found it so funny! But it really is…to me, at least. Please don’t think less of me… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_LovelyLocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Lady\_LovelyLocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_LovelyLocks)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/44 "2005-01-13T02:59:13Z")
The post specific to the quote, that is. Then I went and read the rest of your posts… _URP_ Gotta take those warnings seriously next time… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/45 "2005-01-13T03:40:31Z")
Sorry, no cite-I’ve emailed some friends who might get back to me. I do recall a response by Philadelphia Fire Department (could be 1950s or 1960s) members to a box alarm at a chemical facility where a subsequent sodium explosion severely injured the first engine and truck companies. Surgical repairs to the members involved that which the OP mentions and more, IIRC. I’ll post back if linkable articles become available. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/46 "2005-01-13T03:51:38Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > a few “degloving” injuries. This is why we’re not allowed to wear rings on our oil rig. I’ve seen a picture of the result. Pretty it ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/47 "2005-01-13T05:45:46Z")
> [@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker](#): > > Roy Horn of “Siegfried and Roy” had a section of skull sewn to his stomach so that it could be reinstalled later. Don’t know whether or not they ever did, though. They did. It was to relieve the pressure in his brain following a stroke. I believe they left it in there for three or four months and then reinstalled it. Mentally he’s fine now, though physically he’s still having trouble walking and has lost a significant portion of the use of his left arm. They had a special on TV about it a few months back. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/48 "2005-01-13T16:03:08Z")
Now try reading this thead again WITHOUT thinking about John Wayne Bobbitt. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/49 "2005-01-13T17:29:53Z")
> [@Seven](#): > > I’m in the process of going through this very same thing. I’ve had two reconstructive surgeries on this nose of mine (these aren’t aesthetic nose jobs, these are for function… as in, my nose doesn’t work. Long story. Keep your eyes peeled for a pit thread on my nose soon) So, is anyone else here wondering how they managed to sew your nose to your stomach? and speculating on the disastrous results if you happened to eat, say, beans one day? 😃 Anyway - cool stories. I had no clue they did this sort of thing! ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/50 "2005-01-13T20:47:21Z")
I recently say my brother’s hand about a week ago for the first time without any bandages. I was surprised at how fat they were. Apparently there was a lot more meat to connect than bone. It looks like somebody took a hand made out of play-dough, and just scrunched 2 of the fingers down a little. (The pinky is just sewed up.) I’ve got pictures with a little bandaging on them, if anybody’s interested. I may post them on another message board and give a link here. On the other hand, if you’re really interested in that kind of stuff, you can probably find it on the internet very easily. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/51 "2005-01-13T23:33:40Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > This is why we’re not allowed to wear rings on our oil rig. I’ve seen a picture of the result. Pretty it ain’t. My friend’s sister was doing activities with her son at a boy scout camp. She was climbing a tree (it had like a ladder on it or something) and she slipped and fell and her ring caught on a nail on the tree, and her finger came right off. She lost the finger, it was her wedding-ring finger. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/52 "2005-01-14T00:26:28Z")
An old _Ripley’s Believe it or Not_ blurb described a criminal who had his fingertips sliced off and his hands grafted to his stomach so they’d heal over and he’d no longer have fingerprints. Seems to me it’d be easier just to wear gloves. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/53 "2005-01-14T00:34:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Why couldn’t they just create the “thoe” in the first place? At the Bostom Museum of Science there’s an exhibit – with plaster cast and a 5 minute film – showing this procedure on a Boston fellow who lost his thumb to an accident. They took out one of his toes (detaching it from _way_ back in the foot, as **Seven** describes – they have a picture of the entire excised toe, with ligaments) and put it in place of the absent thumb. Just as you do, they call it a “thoe”. There’s plenty of footage of the guy using it to shuck clams or oysters. It seems a bit out of proportion and stiff, but it’s certainly usable. IIRC, this particular exhibit is more than 25 years old, so I doubt that it’s **Seven** ’s friend. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/54 "2005-01-14T04:38:59Z")
Yeah. My friend did this about 9-10 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![lachesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@lachesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lachesis)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/55 "2005-01-14T14:10:26Z")
> [@Mama Zappa](#): > > So, is anyone else here wondering how they managed to sew your nose to your stomach? and speculating on the disastrous results if you happened to eat, say, beans one day? 😃 > > Anyway - cool stories. I had no clue they did this sort of thing! actually, nose reconstruction is a centuries-old art. there are woodblock engravings from the Middle Ages showing the grafting procedure and positioning. (sword fighting apparently took its toll on noses back then.) the skin on the patient’s arm (the upper portion, IIRC) was sliced open and a 3-sided strip was made. the free end of the strip was sewn to the patient’s face between the eyes, to form the initial attachment for the prosthetic nose. the patient then went around with his arm attached to his face until the graft took hold at the face end. (picture raising your arm to your face like you’re sniffing the inside of your elbow, then getting it splinted like that for a good long while.) once the vascular attachment to the head was successful, the skin flap was cut loose from the arm and shaped into a new nose and stitched into place. reportedly, one doctor later demonstrated the firm attachment and strength of the transplant to an audience by pulling on the patient’s nose. :eek: other patients, though, were reported to be somewhat more coddling of their new features, sometimes even to the point of having silver nose covers created to wear as protection for the pseudo-proboscis. ain’t nothin’ new under the sun. just better techniques. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/56 "2005-01-15T01:10:41Z")
> [@Dignan](#): > > My grandpa, in his youth, caught his thumb in a pulley (some kind of farm accident) and it got kind of mangled. I think he had to have some kind of skin graft to the area later in life, and he underswent a similar procedure of having his hand attached to his stomach. Then the stomach skin went with his hand. There’s a family story that grandma could tickle grandpa’s stomach and he would rub his hand (or vice versa, I can’t remember). One of my dad’s cousins (who is now a priest) got his hand caught in a mangler when he was a kid. True to its name, it did a number on his hand. They grafted some skin from his belly to the hand, but it didn’t turn out quite right. On that hand, there’s a lot more fat (presumably from the abdomen) so it looks really puffy. Maybe the effect was so dramatic because the operation was done when he was quite little, so the fat cells were small at the time but have since grown. My grandfather got his ring finger caught in the chains of an elevator (the kind you use to put hay bales in a hayloft, not the kind that you ride in) and it amputated the finger at the joint between the first and second phalange. They sewed it back on, but must not have caught onto the idea of vascular surgery, and it died on him. So he took off the dead part himself and threw it away! ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/57 "2005-01-15T01:12:52Z")
> [@lachesis](#): > > actually, nose reconstruction is a centuries-old art. there are woodblock engravings from the Middle Ages showing the grafting procedure and positioning. (sword fighting apparently took its toll on noses back then.) > > snip > other patients, though, were reported to be somewhat more coddling of their new features, sometimes even to the point of having silver nose covers created to wear as protection for the pseudo-proboscis. Sorry to double-post, but I missed this. This reconstruction was common because noses were often lost in sword duels. The astronomer Tycho Brahe was famous for having a gold or silver (depending on who you talk to) nose [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086.md?page=2)