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Though similar operations have succeeded in animals—at the Tufts-New England Medical Center, also in Boston, dogs are running around on severed and resewn legs—it is too early to tell how well the surgeons succeeded with Ev Knowles. "The greatest danger," said Dr. Shaw, "is of infection in an artery. If that developed, the arm would have to be sacrificed to save the patient from the danger of possibly fatal hemorrhages." The most nearly comparable U.S. case ended in failure after seven months, when California surgeons had to amputate the resewn leg of Mechanic Billy Smith (TIME, Nov. 9, 1959) because of a deep bone infection.
"It will take two or three years of hard work on our part and his if this boy is to regain the use of his arm," said Dr. Shaw. "If it is completely numb, it will be only a dangling decoration, and no triumph." To ward off that grim possibility, even in advance of nerve surgery, physiotherapists are already teaching Ev Knowles to use his fast-healing left hand to work the joints of his pink but nerveless right.