Many years ago, in Vienna, in the presence of Ottokar Fischer, the famous Austrian magician and collector, I saw an East Indian mystic apply a handkerchief tourniquet to the base of his thumb, and then, picking up a knife, make a circumferential cut from which blood freely flowed. Afterwards, he released the tourniquet, wiped off the blood, and the cut appeared to be healed completely. This trick was of a kind to attract my medical curiosity, and my good friend, Ottokar, gave me the explanation. I since have discovered that the chicane is not new, but I have worked it…