A cat scratch on the back of an 80-year-old woman's hand left something strange dangling from the wound: a threadlike strand that was sent to the lab as a presumed foreign body. Microscopic testing later showed it was a bundle of her own nerve fibers, pulled out through the skin.
The case was published September 9 in the peer-reviewed journal Cureus by Jeremy Jones, Samuel Sternberg, and Greg Jacobs, who are affiliated with the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine in Dothan and Auburn University. The authors describe the extrusion of a nerve fascicle after minor trauma as exceedingly rare, and they gave the report a title that fits the story: "Cat Anatomist."
