Wounds and the Polarity of Implant-induced Accessory Urodele Limbs

Abstract

PREVIOUS work^1–3 has established that xenoplastic implants made into the limbs of larval and adult urodeles would initiate the formation of accessory limb structures and, further⁴, that the position of the superficial wound used for insertion of the implanted material seemed to have a very decided effect on the stimulus-response system. The implants would not take advantage of wounds made proximal to the implant so readily as they would of distal wounds. In larvæ, as well as adults, very few growths were produced from proximal wound areas. These few supernumerary limbs which did form in association with proximal wounds, however, showed interesting growth patterns which are better understood to-day than they were at the time of the previous writing.