"It seized the wrist of one of the nurses and held it in a relentless grip."
[Notes from the Diary of Dr. Burnstrum]
1. The External Hand
June, 6,1925.—This morning I encountered the strangest case of my twenty years of practise. John Pendleton, a young real estate agent of Cassia City, requested a physical examination, particularly of a growth on his left side. After he had stripped I saw that he had a bandage taped to his side.
Upon removal of the bandage the growth proved to be a completely formed right hand, its base (or wrist) fastened at the curve of the eleventh rib, directly beneath the armpit. The hand was slightly open, the palm turned outward and upward. In size it was that of a babe's several months old.
"How long have you had this?" I asked Pendleton.
"Always, as far back as I can remember," he answered. "I was born with it, so I was told. But it wasn't always the same size."
I looked up in surprize. "Not the same size? What do you mean?"
He hesitated and flushed. "Well, it—it was" He made a quick gesture and added energetically, "Doctor, don't think me a fool, or an imaginative idiot. I am a college man and not given to silly imaginings. It's the truth I am telling you, remember! That hand used to be small, very small. But in the last three months this hand has teen growing steadily. And you see its present size!"
A parasitic hand it was, clearly so. I knew the thing, for I had seen such
structures before. But a growing
