Sex in Relation to Society
CHAPTER VI.
15750 words | Chapter 17
MINOR TERATA.
Ancient Ideas Relative to Minor Terata.--The ancients viewed with great
interest the minor structural anomalies of man, and held them to be
divine signs or warnings in much the same manner as they considered
more pronounced monstrosities. In a most interesting and instructive
article, Ballantyne quotes Ragozin in saying that the
Chaldeo-Babylonians, in addition to their other numerous subdivisions
of divination, drew presages and omens for good or evil from the
appearance of the liver, bowels, and viscera of animals offered for
sacrifice and opened for inspection, and from the natural defects or
monstrosities of babies or the young of animals. Ballantyne names this
latter subdivision of divination fetomancy or teratoscopy, and thus
renders a special chapter as to omens derived from monstrous births,
given by Lenormant:--
"The prognostics which the Chaldeans claimed to draw from monstrous
births in man and the animals are worthy of forming a class by
themselves, insomuch the more as it is the part of their divinatory
science with which, up to the present time, we are best acquainted. The
development that their astrology had given to 'genethliaque,' or the
art of horoscopes of births, had led them early to attribute great
importance to all the teratologic facts which were there produced. They
claimed that an experience of 470,000 years of observations, all
concordant, fully justified their system, and that in nothing was the
influence of the stars marked in a more indubitable manner than in the
fatal law which determined the destiny of each individual according to
the state of the sky at the moment when he came into the world. Cicero,
by the very terms which he uses to refute the Chaldeans, shows that the
result of these ideas was to consider all infirmities and monstrosities
that new-born infants exhibited as the inevitable and irremediable
consequence of the action of these astral positions. This being
granted, the observation of similar monstrosities gave, as it were, a
reflection of the state of the sky; on which depended all terrestrial
things; consequently, one might read in them the future with as much
certainty as in the stars themselves. For this reason the greatest
possible importance was attached to the teratologic auguries which
occupy so much space in the fragments of the great treatise on
terrestrial presages which have up to the present time been published."
The rendering into English of the account of 62 teratologic cases in
the human subject with the prophetic meanings attached to them by
Chaldean diviners, after the translation of Opport, is given as follows
by Ballantyne, some of the words being untranslatable:--
"When a woman gives birth to an infant--
(1) that has the ears of a lion, there will be a powerful king in the
country;
(2) that wants the right ear, the days of the master (king) will be
prolonged (reach old age);
(3) that wants both ears, there will be mourning in the country, and
the country will be lessened (diminished);
(4) whose right ear is small, the house of the man (in whose house the
birth took place) will be destroyed;
(5) whose ears are both small, the house of the man will be built of
bricks;
(6) whose right ear is mudissu tehaat (monstrous), there will be an
androgyne in the house of the new-born
(7) whose ears are both mudissu (deformed), the country will perish and
the enemy rejoice;
(8) whose right ear is round, there will be an androgyne in the house
of the new-born;
(9) whose right ear has a wound below, and tur re ut of the man, the
house will be estroyed;
(10) that has two ears on the right side and none on the left, the gods
will bring about a stable reign, the country will flourish, and it will
be a land of repose;
(11) whose ears are both closed, sa a au;
(12) that has a bird's beak, the country will be peaceful;
(13) that has no mouth, the mistress of the house will die;
(14) that has no right nostril, the people of the world will be injured;
(15) whose nostrils are absent, the country will be in affliction, and
the house of the man will be ruined;
(16) whose jaws are absent, the days of the master (king) will be
prolonged, but the house (where the infant is born) will be ruined.
When a woman gives birth to an infant--
(17) that has no lower jaw, mut ta at mat, the name will not be effaced;
(20) that has no nose, affliction will seize upon the country, and the
master of the house will die;
(21) that has neither nose nor virile member (penis), the army of the
king will be strong, peace will be in the land, the men of the king
will be sheltered from evil influences, and Lilit (a female demon)
shall not have power over them;
(22) whose upper lip overrides the lower, the people of the world will
rejoice (or good augury for the troops);
(23) that has no lips, affliction will seize upon the land, and the
house of the man will be destroyed;
(24) whose tongue is kuri aat, the man will be spared (?);
(25) that has no right hand, the country will be convulsed by an
earthquake;
(26) that has no fingers, the town will have no births, the bar shall
be lost;
(27) that has no fingers on the right side, the master (king) will not
pardon his adversary (or shall be humiliated by his enemies);
(28) that has six fingers on the right side, the man will take the
lukunu of the house;
(29) that has six very small toes on both feet, he shall not go to the
lukunu;
(30) that has six toes on each foot, the people of the world will be
injured (calamity to the troops);
(31) that has the heart open and that has no skin, the country will
suffer from calamities;
(32) that has no penis, the master of the house will be enriched by the
harvest of his field;
(33) that wants the penis and the umbilicus, there will be ill-will in
the house, the woman (wife) will have an overbearing eye (be haughty);
but the male descent of the palace will be more extended.
When a woman gives birth to an infant--
(34) that has no well-marked sex, calamity and affliction will seize
upon the land; the master of the house shall have no happiness;
(35) whose anus is closed, the country will suffer from want of
nourishment;
(36) whose right testicle (?) is absent, the country of the master
(king) will perish;
(37) whose right foot is absent, his house will be ruined and there
will be abundance in that of the neighbor;
(38) that has no feet, the canals of the country will be cut
(intercepted) and the house ruined;
(39) that has the right foot in the form of a fish's tail, the booty of
the country of the humble will not be imas sa bir;
(40) whose hands and feet are like four fishes' tails (fins), the
master (king) shall perish (?) and his country shall be consumed;
(41) whose feet are moved by his great hunger, the house of the su su
shall be destroyed;
(42) whose foot hangs to the tendons of the body, there will be great
prosperity in the land;
(43) that has three feet, two in their normal position (attached to the
body) and the third between them, there will be great prosperity in the
land;
(44) whose legs are male and female, there will be rebellion;
(45) that wants the right heel, the country of the master (king) will
be destroyed.
When a woman gives birth to an infant--
(46) that has many white hairs on the head, the days of the king will
be prolonged;
(47) that has much ipga on the head, the master of the house will die,
the house will be destroyed;
(48) that has much pinde on the head, joy shall go to meet the house
(that has a head on the head, the good augury shall enter at its aspect
into the house);
(49) that has the head full of hali, there will be ill-will toward him
and the master (king) of the town shall die;
(50) that has the head full of siksi the king will repudiate his
masters;
(51) that has some pieces of flesh (skin) hanging on the head, there
shall be ill-will;
(52) that has some branches (?) (excrescences) of flesh (skin) hanging
on the head, there shall be ill-will, the house will perish;
(53) that has some formed fingers (horns?) on the head, the days of the
king will be less and the years lengthened (in the duration of his old
age);
(54) that has some kali on the head, there will be a king of the land;
(55) that has a ---- of a bird on the head, the master of the house
shall not prosper;
(56) that has some teeth already through (cut), the days of the king
will arrive at old age, the country will show itself powerful over
(against) strange (feeble) lands, but the house where the infant is
born will be ruined;
(57) that has the beard come out, there will be abundant rains;
(58) that has some birta on the head, the country will be strengthened
(reinforced);
(59) that has on the head the mouth of an old man and that foams
(slabbers), there will be great prosperity in the land, the god Bin
will give a magnificent harvest (inundate the land with fertility), and
abundance shall be in the land;
(60) that has on one side of the head a thickened ear, the first-born
of the men shall live a long time (?);
(61) that has on the head two long and thick ears, there will be
tranquility and the pacification of litigation (contests);
(62) that has the figure in horn (like a horn?)..."
As ancient and as obscure as are these records, Ballantyne has
carefully gone over each, and gives the following lucid explanatory
comments:--
"What 'ears like a lion' (No. 1) may have been it is difficult to
determine; but doubtless the direction and shape of the auricles were
so altered as to give them an animal appearance, and possibly the
deformity was that called 'orechio ad ansa' by Lombroso. The absence of
one or both ears (Nos. 2 and 3) has been noted in recent times by
Virchow (Archiv fur path. Anat. xxx., p. 221), Gradenigo (Taruffi's
'Storia della Teratologia,' vi., p. 552), and others. Generally some
cartilaginous remnant is found, but on this point the Chaldean record
is silent. Variations in the size of the ears (Nos. 4 and 5) are well
known at the present time, and have been discussed at length by Binder
(Archiv fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, xx., 1887) and others.
The exact malformation indicated in Nos. 6 and 7 is, of course, not to
be determined, although further researches in Assyriology may clear up
this point. The 'round ear' (No. 8) is one of Binder's types, and that
with a 'wound below' (No. 9) probably refers to a case of fistula auris
congenita (Toynbee, 'Diseases of the Ear,' 1860). The instance of an
infant born with two ears on the right side (No. 10) was doubtless one
of cervical auricle or preauricular appendage, whilst closure of the
external auditory meatus (No. 11) is a well-known deformity.
"The next thirteen cases (Nos. 12-24) were instances of anomalies of
the mouth and nose. The 'bird's beak' (No. 12) may have been a markedly
aquiline nose; No. 13 was a case of astoma; and Nos. 14 and 15 were
instances of stenosis or atresia of the anterior nares. Fetuses with
absence of the maxillae (Nos. 16 and 17) are in modern terminology
called agnathous. Deformities like that existing in Nos. 20 and 21 have
been observed in paracephalic and cyclopic fetuses. The coincident
absence of nose and penis (No. 21) is interesting, especially when
taken in conjunction with the popular belief that the size of the
former organ varies with that of the latter. Enlargement of the upper
lip (No. 22), called epimacrochelia by Taruffi, and absence of the lips
(No. 23), known now under the name of brachychelia, have been not
unfrequently noticed in recent times. The next six cases (Nos. 25-30)
were instances of malformations of the upper limb: Nos. 25, 26. and 27
were probably instances of the so-called spontaneous or intrauterine
amputation; and Nos. 28, 29, and 30 were examples of the comparatively
common deformity known as polydactyly. No. 31 was probably a case of
ectopia cordis.
"Then follow five instances of genital abnormalities (Nos. 32-36),
consisting of absence of the penis (epispadias?), absence of penis and
umbilicus (epispadias and exomphalos?), hermaphroditism, imperforate
anus, and nondescent of one testicle. The nine following cases (Nos.
37-45) were anomalies of the lower limbs: Nos. 37, 38, and 42 may have
been spontaneous amputations; Nos. 39 and 40 were doubtless instances
of webbed toes (syndactyly), and the deformity indicated in No. 45 was
presumably talipes equinus. The infant born with three feet (No. 43)
was possibly a case of parasitic monstrosity, several of which have
been reported in recent teratologic literature; but what is meant by
the statement concerning 'male and female legs' it is not easy to
determine.
"Certain of the ten following prodigies (Nos. 46-55) cannot in the
present state of our knowledge be identified. The presence of
congenital patches of white or gray hair on the scalp, as recorded in
No. 46, is not an unknown occurrence at the present time; but what the
Chaldeans meant by ipga, pinde, hali riksi, and kali on the head of the
new-born infant it is impossible to tell. The guess may be hazarded
that cephalhematoma, hydrocephalus, meningocele, nevi, or an excessive
amount of vernix caseosa were the conditions indicated, but a wider
acquaintance with the meaning of the cuneiform characters is necessary
before any certain identification is possible. The 'pieces of skin
hanging from the head' (No. 51) may have been fragments of the
membranes; but there is nothing in the accompanying prediction to help
us to trace the origin of the popular belief in the good luck following
the baby born with a caul. If No. 53 was a case of congenital horns on
the head, it must be regarded as a unique example, unless, indeed, a
form of fetal ichthyosis be indicated.
"The remaining observations (No. 56-62) refer to cases of congenital
teeth (No. 56) to deformity of the ears (Nos. 60 and 61), and a horn
(No. 62)."
From these early times almost to the present day similar significance
has been attached to minor structural anomalies. In the following pages
the individual anomalies will be discussed separately and the most
interesting examples of each will be cited. It is manifestly evident
that the object of this chapter is to mention the most striking
instances of abnormism and to give accompanying descriptions of
associate points of interest, rather than to offer a scientific
exposition of teratology, for which the reader is referred elsewhere.
Congenital defect of the epidermis and true skin is a rarity in
pathology. Pastorello speaks of a child which lived for two and a half
hours whose hands and feet were entirely destitute of epidermis; the
true skin of those parts looked like that of a dead and already
putrefying child. Hanks cites the history of a case of antepartum
desquamation of the skin in a living fetus. Hochstetter describes a
full-term, living male fetus with cutaneous defect on both sides of the
abdomen a little above the umbilicus. The placenta and membranes were
normal, a fact indicating that the defect was not due to amniotic
adhesions; the child had a club-foot on the left side. The mother had a
fall three weeks before labor.
Abnormal Elasticity of the Skin.--In some instances the skin is affixed
so loosely to the underlying tissues and is possessed of so great
elasticity that it can be stretched almost to the same extent as India
rubber. There have been individuals who could take the skin of the
forehead and pull it down over the nose, or raise the skin of the neck
over the mouth. They also occasionally have an associate muscular
development in the subcutaneous tissues similar to the panniculus
adiposus of quadrupeds, giving them preternatural motile power over the
skin. The man recently exhibited under the title of the "Elastic-Skin
Man" was an example of this anomaly. The first of this class of
exhibitionists was seen in Buda-Pesth some years since and possessed
great elasticity in the skin of his whole body; even his nose could be
stretched. Figure 70 represents a photograph of an exhibitionist named
Felix Wehrle, who besides having the power to stretch his skin could
readily bend his fingers backward and forward. The photograph was taken
in January, 1888.
In these congenital cases there is loose attachment of the skin without
hypertrophy, to which the term dermatolysis is restricted by Crocker.
Job van Meekren, the celebrated Dutch physician of the seventeenth
century, states that in 1657 a Spaniard, Georgius Albes, is reported to
have been able to draw the skin of the left pectoral region to the left
ear, or the skin under the face over the chin to the vertex. The skin
over the knee could be extended half a yard, and when it retracted to
its normal position it was not in folds. Seiffert examined a case of
this nature in a young man of nineteen, and, contrary to Kopp's
supposition, found that in some skin from over the left second rib the
elastic fibers were quite normal, but there was transformation of the
connective tissue of the dermis into an unformed tissue like a myxoma,
with total disappearance of the connective-tissue bundles. Laxity of
the skin after distention is often seen in multipara, both in the
breasts and in the abdominal walls, and also from obesity, but in all
such cases the skin falls in folds, and does not have a normal
appearance like that of the true "elastic-skin man."
Occasionally abnormal development of the scalp is noticed. McDowall of
twenty-two. On each side of the median line of the head there were five
deep furrows, more curved and shorter as the distance from the median
line increased. In the illustration the hair in the furrows is left
longer than that on the rest of the head. The patient was distinctly
microcephalic and the right side of the body was markedly wasted. The
folds were due to hypertrophy of the muscles and scalp, and the same
sort of furrowing is noticed when a dog "pricks his ears." This case
may possibly be considered as an example of reversion to inferior
types. Cowan records two cases of the foregoing nature in idiots. The
first case was a paralytic idiot of thirty-nine, whose cranial
development was small in proportion to the size of the face and body;
the cranium was oxycephalic; the scalp was lax and redundant and the
hair thin; there were 13 furrows, five on each side running
anteroposteriorly, and three in the occipital region running
transversely. The occipitofrontalis muscle had no action on them. The
second case was that of an idiot of forty-four of a more degraded type
than the previous one. The cranium was round and bullet-shaped and the
hair generally thick. The scalp was not so lax as in the other case,
but the furrows were more crooked. By tickling the scalp over the back
of the neck the two median furrows involuntarily deepened.
Impervious Skin.--There have been individuals who claimed that their
skin was impervious to ordinary puncture, and from time to time these
individuals have appeared in some of the larger medical clinics of the
world for inspection. According to a recent number of the London
Graphic, there is in Berlin a Singhalese who baffles all investigations
by physicians by the impenetrability of his skin. The bronzed
Easterner, a Hercules in shape, claims to have found an elixir which
will render the human skin impervious to any metal point or sharpened
edge of a knife or dagger, and calls himself the "Man with Iron Skin."
He is now exhibiting himself, and his greatest feat is to pass with his
entire body through a hoop the inside of which is hardly big enough to
admit his body and is closely set with sharp knife-points, daggers,
nails, and similar things. Through this hoop he squeezes his body with
absolute impunity. The physicians do not agree as to his immunity, and
some of them think that Rhannin, which is his name, is a fakir who has
by long practice succeeded in hardening himself against the impressions
of metal upon his skin. The professors of the Berlin clinic, however,
considered it worth while to lecture about the man's skin, pronouncing
it an inexplicable matter. This individual performed at the London
Alhambra in the latter part of 1895. Besides climbing with bare feet a
ladder whose rungs were sharp-edged swords, and lying on a bed of nail
points with four men seated upon him, he curled himself up in a barrel,
through whose inner edges nails projected, and was rolled about the
stage at a rapid rate. Emerging from thence uninjured, he gracefully
bows himself off the stage.
Some individuals claim immunity from burns and show many interesting
feats in handling fire. As they are nothing but skilful "fire jugglers"
they deserve no mention here. The immunity of the participants in the
savage fire ceremonies will be discussed in Chapter IX.
Albinism is characterized by the absolute or relative absence of
pigment of the skin, due to an arrest, insufficiency, or retardation of
this pigment. Following Trelat and Guinard, we may divide albinism into
two classes,--general and partial.
As to the etiology of albinism, there is no known cause of the complete
form. Heredity plays no part in the number of cases investigated by the
authors. D'Aube, by his observations on white rabbits, believes that
the influence of consanguinity is a marked factor in the production of
albinism; there are, however, many instances of heredity in this
anomaly on record, and this idea is possibly in harmony with the
majority of observers. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire has noted that albinism
can also be a consequence of a pathologic condition having its origin
in adverse surroundings, the circumstances of the parents, such as the
want of exercise, nourishment, light, etc.
Lesser knew a family in which six out of seven were albinos, and in
some tropical countries, such as Loango, Lower Guinea, it is said to be
endemic. It is exceptional for the parents to be affected; but in a
case of Schlegel, quoted by Crocker, the grandfather was an albino, and
Marey describes the case of the Cape May albinos, in which the mother
and father were "fair emblems of the African race," and of their
children three were black and three were white, born in the following
order: two consecutive black boys, two consecutive white girls, one
black girl, one white boy. Sym of Edinburgh relates the history of a
family of seven children, who were alternately white and black. All
but the seventh were living and in good health and mentally without
defect. The parents and other relatives were dark. Figure 73 portrays
an albino family by the name of Cavalier who exhibited in Minneapolis
in 1887.
Examples of the total absence of pigment occur in all races, but
particularly is it interesting when seen in negroes who are found
absolutely white but preserving all the characteristics of their race,
as, for instance, the kinky, woolly hair, flattened nose, thick lips,
etc. Rene Claille, in his "Voyage a Tombouctou," says that he saw a
white infant, the offspring of a negro and negress. Its hair was
white, its eyes blue, and its lashes flaxen. Its pupils were of a
reddish color, and its physiognomy that of a Mandingo. He says such
cases are not at all uncommon; they are really negro albinos. Thomas
Jefferson, in his "History of Virginia," has an excellent description
of these negroes, with their tremulous and weak eyes; he remarks that
they freckle easily. Buffon speaks of Ethiops with white twins, and
says that albinos are quite common in Africa, being generally of
delicate constitution, twinkling eyes, and of a low degree of
intelligence; they are despised and ill-treated by the other negroes.
Prichard, quoted by Sedgwick, speaks of a case of atavic transmission
of albinism through the male line of the negro race. The grandfather
and the grandchild were albinos, the father being black. There is a
case of a brother and sister who were albinos, the parents being of
ordinary color but the grandfather an albino. Coinde, quoted by
Sedgwick, speaks of a man who, by two different wives, had three albino
children.
A description of the ordinary type of albino would be as follows: The
skin and hair are deprived of pigment; the eyebrows and eyelashes are
of a brilliant white or are yellowish; the iris and the choroid are
nearly or entirely deprived of coloring material, and in looking at the
eye we see a roseate zone and the ordinary pink pupil; from absence of
pigment they necessarily keep their eyes three-quarters closed, being
photophobic to a high degree. They are amblyopic, and this is due
partially to a high degree of ametropia (caused by crushing of the
eyeball in the endeavor to shut out light) and from retinal exhaustion
and nystagmus. Many authors have claimed that they have little
intelligence, but this opinion is not true. Ordinarily the reproductive
functions are normal, and if we exclude the results of the union of two
albinos we may say that these individuals are fecund.
Partial albinism is seen. The parts most often affected are the
genitals, the hair, the face, the top of the trunk, the nipple, the
back of the hands and fingers. Folker reports the history of a case of
an albino girl having pink eyes and red hair, the rest of the family
having pink eyes and white hair. Partial albinism, necessarily
congenital, presenting a piebald appearance, must not be confounded
with leukoderma, which is rarely seen in the young and which will be
described later.
Albinism is found in the lower animals, and is exemplified ordinarily
by rats, mice, crows, robins, etc. In the Zoologic Garden at Baltimore
two years ago was a pair of pure albino opossums. The white elephant is
celebrated in the religious history of Oriental nations, and is an
object of veneration and worship in Siam. White monkeys and white
roosters are also worshiped. In the Natural History Museum in London
there are stuffed examples of albinism and melanism in the lower
animals.
Melanism is an anomaly, the exact contrary of the preceding. It is
characterized by the presence in the tissues and skin of an excessive
amount of pigment. True total melanism is unknown in man, in whom is
only observed partial melanism, characterized simply by a pronounced
coloration of part of the integument.
Some curious instances have been related of an infant with a
two-colored face, and of others with one side of the face white and the
other black; whether they were cases of partial albinism or partial
melanism cannot be ascertained from the descriptions.
Such epidermic anomalies as ichthyosis, scleroderma, and molluscum
simplex, sometimes appearing shortly after birth, but generally seen
later in life, will be spoken of in the chapter on Anomalous Skin
Diseases.
Human horns are anomalous outgrowths from the skin and are far more
frequent than ordinarily supposed. Nearly all the older writers cite
examples. Aldrovandus, Amatus Lusitanus, Boerhaave, Dupre, Schenck,
Riverius, Vallisneri, and many others mention horns on the head. In the
ancient times horns were symbolic of wisdom and power. Michael Angelo
in his famous sculpture of Moses has given the patriarch a pair of
horns. Rhodius observed a Benedictine monk who had a pair of horns and
who was addicted to rumination. Fabricius saw a man with horns on his
head, whose son ruminated; the son considered that by virtue of his
ruminating characteristics his father had transmitted to him the
peculiar anomaly of the family. Fabricius Hildanus saw a patient with
horns all over the body and another with horns on the forehead.
Gastaher speaks of a horn from the left temple; Zacutus Lusitanus saw a
horn from the heel; Wroe, one of considerable length from the scapula;
Cosnard, one from the bregma; the Ephemerides, from the foot; Borellus,
from the face and foot, and Ash, horns all over the body. Home, Cooper,
and Treves have collected examples of horns, and there is one 11 inches
long and 2 1/2 in circumference in a London museum. Lozes collected
reports of 71 cases of horns,--37 in females, 31 in males, and three in
infants. Of this number, 15 were on the head, eight on the face, 18 on
the lower extremities, eight on the trunk, and three on the glans
penis. Wilson collected reports of 90 cases,--44 females, 39 males, the
sex not being mentioned in the remainder. Of these 48 were on the head,
four on the face, four on the nose, 11 on the thigh, three on the leg
and foot, six on the back, five on the glans penis, and nine on the
trunk. Lebert's collection numbered 109 cases of cutaneous horns. The
greater frequency among females is admitted by all authors. Old age is
a predisposing cause. Several patients over seventy have been seen and
one of ninety-seven.
Instances of cutaneous horns, when seen and reported by the laity, give
rise to most amusing exaggerations and descriptions. The following
account is given in New South Wales, obviously embellished with
apocryphal details by some facetious journalist: The child, five weeks
old, was born with hair two inches long all over the body; his features
were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows.
He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of
teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all
fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother
almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country
people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a
rebuff that the mother gave to a Jewish peddler selling
Crucifixion-pictures. Vexed by his persistence, she said she would
sooner have a devil in her house than his picture.
Lamprey has made a minute examination of the much-spoken-of "Horned Men
of Africa." He found that this anomaly was caused by a congenital
malformation and remarkable development of the infraorbital ridge of
the maxillary bone. He described several cases, and through an
interpreter found that they were congenital, followed no history of
traumatism, caused little inconvenience, and were unassociated with
disturbance of the sense of smell. He also learned that the deformity
was quite rare in the Cape Coast region, and received no information
tending to prove the conjecture that the tribes in West Africa used
artificial means to produce the anomaly, although such custom is
prevalent among many aborigines.
Probably the most remarkable case of a horn was that of Paul Rodrigues,
a Mexican porter, who, from the upper and lateral part of his head, had
a horn 14 inches in circumference and divided into three shafts, which
he concealed by constantly wearing a peculiarly shaped red cap. There
is in Paris a wax model of a horn, eight or nine inches in length,
removed from an old woman by the celebrated Souberbielle. Figure 75 is
from a wax model supposed to have been taken from life, showing an
enormous grayish-black horn proceeding from the forehead. Warren
mentions a case under the care of Dubois, in a woman from whose
forehead grew a horn six inches in diameter and six inches in height.
It was hard at the summit and had a fetid odor. In 1696 there was an
old woman in France who constantly shed long horns from her forehead,
one of which was presented to the King. Bartholinus mentions a horn 12
inches long. Voigte cites the case of an old woman who had a horn
branching into three portions, coming from her forehead. Sands speaks
of a woman who had a horn 6 3/4 inches long, growing from her head.
There is an account of the extirpation of a horn nearly ten inches in
length from the forehead of a woman of eighty-two. Bejau describes a
woman of forty from whom he excised an excrescence resembling a ram's
horn, growing from the left parietal region. It curved forward and
nearly reached the corresponding tuberosity. It was eight cm. long,
two cm. broad at the base, and 1 1/2 cm. at the apex, and was quite
mobile. It began to grow at the age of eleven and had constantly
increased. Vidal presented before the Academie de Medecine in 1886 a
twisted horn from the head of a woman. This excrescence was ten inches
long, and at the time of presentation reproduction of it was taking
place in the woman. Figure 76 shows a case of ichthyosis cornea
pictured in the Lancet, 1850.
There was a woman of seventy-five, living near York, who had a horny
growth from the face which she broke off and which began to reproduce,
the illustration representing the growth during twelve months. Lall
mentions a horn from the cheek; Gregory reports one that measured 7 1/2
inches long that was removed from the temple of a woman in Edinburgh;
Chariere of Barnstaple saw a horn that measured seven inches growing
from the nape of a woman's neck; Kameya Iwa speaks of a dermal horn of
the auricle; Saxton of New York has excised several horns from the
tympanic membrane of the ear; Noyes speaks of one from the eyelid;
Bigelow mentions one from the chin; Minot speaks of a horn from the
lower lip, and Doran of one from the neck.
Gould cites the instance of a horn growing from an epitheliomatous
penis. The patient was fifty-two years of age and the victim of
congenital phimosis. He was circumcised four years previously, and
shortly after the wound healed there appeared a small wart, followed by
a horn about the size of a marble. Jewett speaks of a penile horn 3 1/2
inches long and 3 3/4 inches in diameter; Pick mentions one 2 1/2
inches long. There is an account of a Russian peasant boy who had a
horn on his penis from his earliest childhood. Johnson mentions a case
of a horn from the scrotum, which was of sebaceous origin and was
subsequently supplanted by an epithelioma.
Ash reported the case of a girl named Annie Jackson, living in
Waterford, Ireland, who had horny excrescences from her joints, arms,
axillae, nipples, ears, and forehead. Locke speaks of a boy at the
Hopital de la Charite in Paris, who had horny excrescences four inches
long and 11 inches in circumference growing from his fingers and toes.
Wagstaffe presents a horn which grew from the middle of the leg six
inches below the knee in a woman of eighty. It was a flattened spiral
of more than two turns, and during forty years' growth had reached the
length of 14.3 inches. Its height was 3.8 inches, its skin-attachment
1.5 inches in diameter, and it ended in a blunt extremity of 0.5 inch
in diameter. Stephens mentions a dermal horn on the buttocks at the
seat of a carcinomatous cicatrix. Harris and Domonceau speak of horns
from the leg. Cruveilhier saw a Mexican Indian who had a horn four
inches long and eight inches in circumference growing from the left
lumbar region. It had been sawed off twice by the patient's son and was
finally extirpated by Faget. The length of the pieces was 12 inches.
Bellamy saw a horn on the clitoris about the size of a tiger's claw in
a its origin from beneath the preputium clitoridis.
Horns are generally solitary but cases of multiple formation are known
Lewin and Heller record a syphilitic case with eight cutaneous horns on
the palms and soles. A female patient of Manzuroff had as many as 185
horns.
Pancoast reports the case of a man whose nose, cheeks, forehead, and
lips were covered with horny growths, which had apparently undergone
epitheliomatous degeneration. The patient was a sea-captain of
seventy-eight, and had been exposed to the winds all his life. He had
suffered three attacks of erysipelas from prolonged exposure. When he
consulted Pancoast the horns had nearly all fallen off and were brought
to the physician for inspection; and the photograph was taken after the
patient had tied the horns in situ on his face.
Anomalies of the Hair.--Congenital alopecia is quite rare, and it is
seldom that we see instances of individuals who have been totally
destitute of hair from birth. Danz knew of two adult sons of a Jewish
family who never had hair or teeth. Sedgwick quotes the case of a man
of fifty-eight who ever since birth was totally devoid of hair and in
whom sensible perspiration and tears were absent. A cousin on his
mother's side, born a year before him, had precisely the same
peculiarity. Buffon says that the Turks and some other people practised
depilatory customs by the aid of ointments and pomades, principally
about the genitals. Atkinson exhibited in Philadelphia a man of forty
who never had any distinct growth of hair since birth, was edentulous,
and destitute of the sense of smell and almost of that of taste. He had
no apparent perspiration, and when working actively he was obliged to
wet his clothes in order to moderate the heat of his body. He could
sleep in wet clothes in a damp cellar without catching cold. There was
some hair in the axillae and on the pubes, but only the slightest down
on the scalp, and even that was absent on the skin. His maternal
grandmother and uncle were similarly affected; he was the youngest of
21 children, had never been sick, and though not able to chew food in
the ordinary manner, he had never suffered from dyspepsia in any form.
He was married and had eight children. Of these, two girls lacked a
number of teeth, but had the ordinary quantity of hair. Hill speaks of
an aboriginal man in Queensland who was entirely devoid of hair on the
head, face, and every part of the body. He had a sister, since dead,
who was similarly hairless. Hill mentions the accounts given of another
black tribe, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, that contained hairless
members. This is very strange, as the Australian aboriginals are a very
hairy race of people.
Hutchinson mentions a boy of three and a half in whom there was
congenital absence of hair and an atrophic condition of the skin and
appendages. His mother was bald from the age of six, after alopecia
areata. Schede reports two cases of congenitally bald children of a
peasant woman (a boy of thirteen and a girl of six months). They had
both been born quite bald, and had remained so. In addition there were
neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and nowhere a trace of lanugo. The
children were otherwise healthy and well formed. The parents and
brothers were healthy and possessed a full growth of hair. Thurman
reports a case of a man of fifty-eight, who was almost devoid of hair
all his life and possessed only four teeth. His skin was very delicate
and there was absence of sensible perspiration and tears. The skin was
peculiar in thinness, softness, and absence of pigmentation. The hair
on the crown of the head and back was very fine, short, and soft, and
not more in quantity than that of an infant of three months. There was
a similar peculiarity in his cousin-german. Williams mentions the case
of a young lady of fifteen with scarcely any hair on the eyebrows or
head and no eyelashes. She was edentulous and had never sensibly
perspired. She improved under tonic treatment.
Rayer quotes the case of Beauvais, who was a patient in the Hopital de
la Charite in 1827. The skin of this man's cranium was apparently
completely naked, although in examining it narrowly it was found to be
beset with a quantity of very white and silky hair, similar to the down
that covers the scalp of infants; here and there on the temples there
were a few black specks, occasioned by the stumps of several hairs
which the patient had shaved off. The eyebrows were merely indicated by
a few fine and very short hairs; the free edges of the eyelids were
without cilia, but the bulb of each of these was indicated by a small,
whitish point. The beard was so thin and weak that Beauvais clipped it
off only every three weeks. A few straggling hairs were observed on the
breast and pubic region, as in young people on the approach of puberty.
There was scarcely any under the axillae. It was rather more abundant
on the inner parts of the legs. The voice was like that of a full-grown
and well-constituted man. Beauvais was of an amorous disposition and
had had syphilis twice. His mother and both sisters had good heads of
hair, but his father presented the same defects as Beauvais.
Instances are on record of women devoid of hair about the genital
region. Riolan says that he examined the body of a female libertine who
was totally hairless from the umbilical region down.
Congenital alopecia is seen in animals. There is a species of dog, a
native of China but now bred in Mexico and in the United States, which
is distinguished for its congenital alopecia. The same fact has been
observed occasionally in horses, cattle, and dogs. Heusner has seen a
pigeon destitute of feathers, and which engendered a female which in
her turn transmitted the same characteristic to two of her young.
Sexualism and Hair Growth.--The growth or development of the hair may
be accelerated by the state of the organs of generation. This is
peculiarly noticeable in the pubic hairs and the beard, and is fully
exemplified in the section on precocious development (Chapter VII);
however, Moreau de la Sarthe showed a child to the Medical Faculty of
Paris in whom precocious development of the testicles had influenced
that of the hair to such a degree that, at the age of six, the chest of
this boy was as thickly set with hair as is usually seen in adults. It
is well known that eunuchs often lose a great part of their beards, and
after removal of the ovaries women are seen to develop an extra
quantity of hair. Gerberon tells of an infant with a beard, and
Paullini and the Ephemerides mention similar instances.
Bearded women are not at all infrequent. Hippocrates mentions a female
who grew a beard shortly after menstruation had ceased. It is a
well-recognized fact that after the menopause women become more
hirsute, the same being the case after removal of any of the functional
generative apparatus. Vicat saw a virgin who had a beard, and Joch
speaks of "foeminis barbati." Leblond says that certain women of
Ethiopia and South America have beards and little or no menstruation.
He also says that sterility and excessive chastity are causes of female
beards, and cites the case of Schott of a young widow who secluded
herself in a cloister, and soon had a beard.
Barbara Urster, who lived in the 16th century, had a beard to her
girdle. The most celebrated "bearded woman" was Rosine-Marguerite
Muller, who died in a hospital in Dresden in 1732, with a thick beard
and heavy mustache. Julia Pastrana had her face covered with thick hair
and had a full beard and mustache. She exhibited defective dentition in
both jaws, and the teeth present were arranged in an irregular fashion.
She had pronounced prognathism, which gave her a simian appearance.
Ecker examined in 1876 a woman who died at Fribourg, whose face
contained a full beard and a luxuriant mustache.
Harris reports several cases of bearded women, inmates of the Coton
Hill Lunatic Asylum. One of the patients was eighty-three years of age
and had been insane forty-four years following a puerperal period. She
would not permit the hair on her face to be cut, and the curly white
hairs had attained a length of from eight to ten inches on the chin,
while on the upper lip the hairs were scarcely an inch. This patient
was quite womanly in all her sentiments. The second case was a woman of
thirty-six, insane from emotional melancholia. She had tufts of thick,
curly hair on the chin two inches long, light yellowish in color, and a
few straggling hairs on the upper lip. The third case was that of a
woman of sixty-four, who exhibited a strong passion for the male sex.
Her menstruation had been regular until the menopause. She plaited her
beard, and it was seven or eight inches long on the chin and one inch
on the lip. This woman had extremely hairy legs. Another case was that
of a woman of sixty-two, who, though bald, developed a beard before the
climacteric. Her structural proportions were feminine in character, and
it is said that her mother, who was sane, had a beard also. A curious
case was that of a woman of twenty-three (Mrs. Viola M.), who from the
age of three had a considerable quantity of hair on the side of the
cheek which eventually became a full beard. She was quite feminine was
free from excessive hair elsewhere, her nose and forehead being
singularly bare. Her voice was very sweet; she was married at seventeen
and a half, having two normal children, and nursed each for one month.
"The bearded woman" of every circus side-show is an evidence of the
curious interest in which these women are held. The accompanying
illustration is a representation of a "bearded woman" born in Bracken
County, Ky. Her beard measured 15 inches in length.
There is a class of anomalies in which there is an exaggerated
development of hair. We would naturally expect to find the primitive
peoples, who are not provided with artificial protection against the
wind, supplied with an extra quantity of hair or having a hairy coat
like animals; but this is sometimes found among civilized people. This
abnormal presence of hair on the human body has been known for many
years; the description of Esau in the Bible is an early instance.
Aldrovandus says that in the sixteenth century there came to the Canary
Islands a family consisting of a father, son, and two daughters, who
were covered all over their bodies by long hair, and their portrait,
certainly reproduced from life, resembles the modern instances of "dog
men."
In 1883 there was shown in England and France, afterward in America, a
girl of seven named "Krao," a native of Indo-China. The whole body of
this child was covered with black hair. Her face was of the prognathic
type, and this, with her extraordinary prehensile powers of feet and
lips, gave her the title of "Darwin's missing link." In 1875 there was
exhibited in Paris, under the name of "l'homme-chien" Adrien Jeftichew,
a Russian peasant of fifty-five, whose face, head, back, and limbs were
covered with a brown hairy coat looking like wool and several
centimeters long. The other parts of the body were also covered with
hair, but less abundantly. This individual had a son of three,
Theodore, who was hairy like himself.
A family living in Burmah (Shive-Maon, whose history is told by
Crawford and Yule), consisting of a father, a daughter, and a
granddaughter, were nearly covered with hair. Figure 84 represents a
somewhat similar family who were exhibited in this country.
Teresa Gambardella, a young girl of twelve, mentioned by Lombroso, was
covered all over the body, with the exception of the hands and feet, by
thick, bushy hair. This hypertrichosis was exemplified in this country
only a few months since by a person who went the rounds of the dime
museums under the euphonious name of "Jo-Jo, the dog-face boy." His
face was truly that of a skye-terrier.
Sometimes the hairy anomalies are but instances of naevus pilosus. The
Indian ourang-outang woman examined at the office of the Lancet was an
example of this kind. Hebra, Hildebrandt, Jablokoff, and Klein describe
similar cases. Many of the older "wild men" were individuals bearing
extensive hairy moles.
Rayer remarks that he has seen a young man of sixteen who exhibited
himself to the public under the name of a new species of wild man whose
breast and back were covered with light brown hair of considerable
length.
The surface upon which it grew was of a brownish hue, different from
the color of the surrounding integument. Almost the whole of the right
arm was covered in the same manner. On the lower extremity several
tufts of hair were observed implanted upon brown spots from seven to
eight lines in diameter symmetrically disposed upon both legs. The hair
was brown, of the same color as that of the head. Bichat informs us
that he saw at Paris an unfortunate man who from his birth was
afflicted with a hairy covering of his face like that of a wild boar,
and he adds that the stories which were current among the vulgar of
individuals with a boar's head, wolf's head, etc., undoubtedly referred
to cases in which the face was covered to a greater or less degree with
hair. Villerme saw a child of six at Poitiers in 1808 whose body,
except the feet and hands, was covered with a great number of prominent
brown spots of different dimensions, beset with hair shorter and not so
strong as that of a boar, but bearing a certain resemblance to the
bristles of that animal. These spots occupied about one-fifth of the
surface of this child's skin. Campaignac in the early part of this
century exhibited a case in which there was a large tuft of long black
hair growing from the shoulder. Dufour has detailed a case of a young
man of twenty whose sacral region contained a tuft of hair as long and
black, thick and pliant, as that of the head, and, particularly
remarkable in this case, the skin from which it grew was as fine and
white as the integument of the rest of the body. There was a woman
exhibited recently, under the advertisement of "the lady with a mane,"
who had growing from the center of her back between the shoulders a
veritable mane of long, black hair, which doubtless proceeded from a
form of naevus.
Duyse reports a case of extensive hypertrichosis of the back in a girl
aged nine years; her teeth were normal; there was pigmentation of the
back and numerous pigmentary nevi on the face. Below each scapula there
were tumors of the nature of fibroma molluscum. In addition to hairy
nevi on the other parts of the body there was localized ichthyosis.
Ziemssen figures an interesting case of naevus pilosus resembling
"bathing tights". There were also present several benign tumors
(fibroma molluscum) and numerous smaller nevi over the body. Schulz
first observed the patient in 1878. This individual's name was Blake,
and he stated that he was born with a large naevus spreading over the
upper parts of the thighs and lower parts of the trunk, like
bathing-tights, and resembling the pelt of an animal. The same was true
of the small hairy parts and the larger and smaller tumors.
Subsequently the altered portions of the skin had gradually become
somewhat larger. The skin of the large hairy naevus, as well as that of
the smaller ones, was stated by Schulz to have been in the main
thickened, in part uneven, verrucose, from very light to intensely dark
brown in color; the consistency of the larger mammiform and smaller
tumors soft, doughy, and elastic. The case was really one of large
congenital naevus pilosus and fibroma molluscum combined.
A Peruvian boy was shown at the Westminster Aquarium with a dark, hairy
mole situated in the lower part of the trunk and on the thighs in the
position of bathing tights. Nevins Hyde records two similar cases with
dermatolytic growths. A sister of the Peruvian boy referred to had a
still larger growth, extending from the nucha all over the back. Both
she and her brother had hundreds of smaller hairy growths of all sizes
scattered irregularly over the face, trunk, and limbs. According to
Crocker, a still more extraordinary case, with extensive dermatolytic
growths all over the back and nevi of all sizes elsewhere, is described
and engraved in "Lavater's Physiognomy," 1848. Baker describes an
operation in which a large mole occupying half the forehead was removed
by the knife.
In some instances the hair and beard is of an enormous length. Erasmus
Wilson of London saw a female of thirty-eight, whose hair measured 1.65
meters long. Leonard of Philadelphia speaks of a man in the interior of
this country whose beard trailed on the ground when he stood upright,
and measured 2.24 meters long. Not long ago there appeared the famous
so-called "Seven Sutherland Sisters," whose hair touched the ground,
and with whom nearly every one is familiar through a hair tonic which
they extensively advertised. In Nature, January 9, 1892, is an account
of a Percheron horse whose mane measured 13 feet and whose tail
measured almost ten feet, probably the greatest example of excessive
mane development on record. Figure 88 represents Miss Owens, an
exhibitionist, whose hair measured eight feet three inches. In Leslie's
Weekly, January 2, 1896, there is a portrait of an old negress named
Nancy Garrison whose woolly hair was equally as long.
The Ephemerides contains the account of a woman who had hair from the
mons veneris which hung to the knees; it was affected with plica
polonica, as was also the other hair of the body.
Rayer saw a Piedmontese of twenty-eight, with an athletic build, who
had but little beard or hair on the trunk, but whose scalp was covered
with a most extraordinary crop. It was extremely fine and silky, was
artificially frizzled, dark brown in color, and formed a mass nearly
five feet in circumference.
Certain pathologic conditions may give rise to accidental growths of
hair. Boyer was accustomed to quote in his lectures the case of a man
who, having an inflamed tumor in the thigh, perceived this part
becoming covered in a short time with numerous long hairs. Rayer speaks
of several instances of this kind. In one the part affected by a
blister in a child of two became covered with hair. Another instance
was that of a student of medicine, who after bathing in the sea for a
length of time, and exposing himself to the hot sun, became affected
with coppery patches, from which there sprang a growth of hair.
Bricheteau, quoted by the same authority, speaks of a woman of
twenty-four, having white skin and hair of deep black, who after a long
illness occasioned by an affection analogous to marasmus became
covered, especially on the back, breast, and abdomen, with a multitude
of small elevations similar to those which appear on exposure to cold.
These little elevations became brownish at the end of a few days, and
short, fair, silky hair was observed on the summit of each, which grew
so rapidly that the whole surface of the body with the exception of the
hands and face became velvety. The hair thus evolved was afterward
thrown out spontaneously and was not afterward reproduced.
Anomalies of the Color of the Hair.--New-born infants sometimes have
tufts of hair on their heads which are perfectly white in color.
Schenck speaks of a young man whose beard from its first appearance
grew white. Young men from eighteen to twenty occasionally become gray;
and according to Rayer, paroxysms of rage, unexpected and unwelcome
news, diseases of the scalp such as favus, wounds of the head, habitual
headache, over-indulgence of the sexual appetite, mercurial courses too
frequently repeated, too great anxiety, etc., have been known to blanch
the hair prematurely.
The well-accepted fact of the sudden changing of the color of the hair
from violent emotions or other causes has always excited great
interest, and many ingenious explanations have been devised to account
for it. There is a record in the time of Charles V of a young man who
was committed to prison in 1546 for seducing his girl companion, and
while there was in great fear and grief, expecting a death-sentence
from the Emperor the next day. When brought before his judge, his face
was wan and pale and his hair and beard gray, the change having taken
place in the night. His beard was filthy with drivel, and the Emperor,
moved by his pitiful condition, pardoned him. There was a clergyman of
Nottingham whose daughter at the age of thirteen experienced a change
from jet-blackness of the hair to white in a single night, but this was
confined to a spot on the back of the head 1 1/2 inches in length. Her
hair soon became striped, and in seven years was totally white. The
same article speaks of a girl in Bedfordshire, Maria Seeley, aged
eight, whose face was swarthy, and whose hair was long and dark on one
side and light and short on the other. One side of her body was also
brown, while the other side was light and fair. She was seen by the
faculty in London, but no cause could be established.
Voigtel mentions the occurrence of canities almost suddenly. Bichat
had a personal acquaintance whose hair became almost entirely gray in
consequence of some distressing news that reached him. Cassan records a
similar case. According to Rayer, a woman by the name of Perat,
summoned before the Chamber of Peers to give evidence in the trial of
the assassin Louvel, was so much affected that her hair became entirely
white in a single night Byron makes mention of this peculiar anomaly in
the opening stanzas of the "Prisoner of Chillon:"--
"My hair is gray, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single
night. As men's have grown from sudden fears."
The commentators say that Byron had reference to Ludovico Sforza and
others. The fact of the change is asserted of Marie Antoinette, the
wife of Louis XVI, though in not quite so short a period, grief and not
fear being the cause. Ziemssen cites Landois' case of a compositor of
thirty-four who was admitted to a hospital July 9th with symptoms of
delirium tremens; until improvement began to set in (July 13th) he was
continually tormented by terrifying pictures of the imagination. In the
night preceding the day last mentioned the hair of the head and beard
of the patient, formerly blond, became gray. Accurate examination by
Landois showed the pigment contents of the hair to be unchanged, and
led him to believe that the white color was solely due to the excessive
development of air-bubbles in the hair shaft. Popular belief brings the
premature and especially the sudden whitening into connection with
depressing mental emotions. We might quote the German
expression--"Sich graue Haare etwas wachsen lassen" ("To worry one's
self gray"). Brown-Sequard observed on several occasions in his own
dark beard hairs which had turned white in a night and which he
epileptoid. He closes his brief communication on the subject with the
belief that it is quite possible for black hair to turn white in one
night or even in a less time, although Hebra and Kaposi discredit
sudden canities (Duhring). Raymond and Vulpian observed a lady of
neurotic type whose hair during a severe paroxysm of neuralgia
following a mental strain changed color in five hours over the entire
scalp except on the back and sides; most of the hair changed from black
to red, but some to quite white, and in two days all the red hair
became white and a quantity fell off. The patient recovered her general
health, but with almost total loss of hair, only a few red, white, and
black hairs remaining on the occipital and temporal regions. Crocker
cites the case of a Spanish cock which was nearly killed by some pigs.
The morning after the adventure the feathers of the head had become
completely white, and about half of those on the back of the neck were
also changed.
Dewees reports a case of puerperal convulsions in a patient under his
care which was attended with sudden canities. From 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. 50
ounces of blood were taken. Between the time of Dr. Dewees' visits, not
more than an hour, the hair anterior to the coronal suture turned
white. The next day it was less light, and in four or five days was
nearly its natural color. He also mentions two cases of sudden
blanching from fright.
Fowler mentions the case of a healthy girl of sixteen who found one
morning while combing her hair, which was black, that a strip the whole
length of the back hair was white, starting from a surface about two
inches square around the occipital protuberance. Two weeks later she
had patches of ephelis over the whole body.
Prentiss, in Science, October 3, 1890, has collected numerous instances
of sudden canities, several of which will be given:--
"In the Canada Journal of Medical Science, 1882, p. 113, is reported a
case of sudden canities due to business-worry. The microscope showed a
great many air-vesicles both in the medullary substance and between the
medullary and cortical substance.
"In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1851, is reported a case
of a man thirty years old, whose hair 'was scared' white in a day by a
grizzly bear. He was sick in a mining camp, was left alone, and fell
asleep. On waking he found a grizzly bear standing over him.
"A second case is that of a man of twenty-three years who was gambling
in California. He placed his entire savings of $1100 on the turn of a
card. He was under tremendous nervous excitement while the cards were
being dealt. The next day his hair was perfectly white.
"In the same article is the statement that the jet-black hair of the
Pacific Islanders does not turn gray gradually, but when it does turn
it is sudden, usually the result of fright or sudden emotions."
D'Alben, quoted by Fournier, describes a young man of twenty-four, an
officer in the regiment of Touraine in 1781, who spent the night in
carnal dissipation with a mulatto, after which he had violent spasms,
rendering flexion of the body impossible. His beard and hair on the
right side of the body was found as white as snow, the left side being
unchanged. He appeared before the Faculte de Montpelier, and though
cured of his nervous symptoms his hair was still white, and no
suggestion of relief was offered him.
Louis of Bavaria, who died in 1294, on learning of the innocence of his
wife, whom he had put to death on a suspicion of her infidelity, had a
change of color in his hair, which became white almost immediately.
Vauvilliers, the celebrated Hellenist, became white-haired almost
immediately after a terrible dream, and Brizard, the comedian,
experienced the same change after a narrow escape from drowning in the
Rhone. The beard and the hair of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in
twenty-four hours after hearing that his father had been mortally
wounded at the battle of Auerstadt.
De Schweinitz speaks of a well-formed and healthy brunette of eighteen
in whom the middle portion of the cilia of the right upper eyelid and a
number of the hairs of the lower lid turned white in a week. Both eyes
were myopic, but no other cause could be assigned. Another similar case
is cited by Hirshberg, and the authors have seen similar cases.
Thornton of Margate records the case of a lady in whom the hair of the
left eyebrow and eyelashes began to turn white after a fortnight of
sudden grief, and within a week all the hair of these regions was quite
white and remained so. No other part was affected nor was there any
other symptom. After a traumatic ophthalmitis of the left and
sympathetic inflammation of the right eye in a boy of nine, Schenck
observed that a group of cilia of the right upper lid and nearly all
the lashes of the upper lid of the left eye, which had been enucleated,
turned silvery-white in a short time. Ludwig has known the eyelashes to
become white after small-pox. Communications are also on record of
local decolorization of the eyebrows and lashes in neuralgias of
isolated branches of the trigeminus, especially of the supraorbital
nerve.
Temporary and Partial Canities.--Of special interest are those cases in
which whiteness of the hair is only temporary. Thus, Compagne mentions
a case in which the black hair of a woman of thirty-six began to fade
on the twenty-third day of a malignant fever, and on the sixth day
following was perfectly white, but on the seventh day the hairs became
darker again, and on the fourteenth day after the change they had
become as black as they were originally. Wilson records a case in which
the hair lost its color in winter and regained it in summer. Sir John
Forbes, according to Crocker, had gray hair for a long time, then
suddenly it all turned white, and after remaining so for a year it
returned to its original gray.
Grayness of the hair is sometimes only partial. According to Crocker an
adult whose hair was generally brown had a tuft of white hair over the
temple, and several like cases are on record. Lorry tells us that
grayness of one side only is sometimes occasioned by severe headache.
Hagedorn has known the beard to be black in one place and white in
another. Brandis mentions the hair becoming white on one side of the
face while it continued of its former color on the other. Rayer quotes
cases of canities of the whole of one side of the body.
Richelot observed white mottling of hair in a girl sick with chlorosis.
The whitening extended from the roots to a distance of two inches. The
probable cause was a temporary alteration of the pigment-forming
function. When the chlorosis was cured the natural color returned.
Paullini and Riedlin, as well as the Ephemerides, speak of different
colored hair in the same head, and it is not at all rare to see
individuals with an anomalously colored patch of hair on the head. The
members of the ancient house of Rohan were said to possess a tuft of
white hair on the front of their heads.
Michelson of Konigsberg describes a curious case in a barrister of
twenty-three affected with partial canities. In the family of both
parents there was stated to be congenital premature canities, and some
white hairs had been observed even in childhood. In the fifteenth year,
after a grave attack of scarlet fever, the hair to a great extent fell
out. The succeeding growth of hair was stated to have been throughout
lighter in tissue and color and fissured at the points. Soon after
bunches of white hair appeared on the occiput, and in the succeeding
years small patches of decolored hairs were observed also on the
anterior and lateral portions of the scalp. In the spring of 1880 the
patient exhibited signs of infiltration of the apex of the right lung,
and afterward a violent headache came on. At the time of the report the
patient presented the appearance shown in Figure 89. The complexion
was delicate throughout, the eyelashes and eyelids dark brown, the
moustache and whiskers blond, and in the latter were a few groups of
white hair. The white patches were chiefly on the left side of the
head. The hairs growing on them were unpigmented, but otherwise normal.
The patient stated that his head never sweated. He was stout and
exhibited no signs of internal disease, except at the apex of the right
lung.
Anomalous Color Changes of the Hair.--The hair is liable to undergo
certain changes of color connected with some modification of that part
of the bulb secreting its coloring-matter. Alibert, quoted by Rayer,
gives us a report of the case of a young lady who, after a severe fever
which followed a very difficult labor, lost a fine head of hair during
a discharge of viscid fluid, which inundated the head in every part. He
tells us, further, that the hair grew again of a deep black color after
the recovery of the patient. The same writer tells of the case of James
B--, born with brown hair, who, having lost it all during the course of
a sickness, had it replaced with a crop of the brightest red. White
and gray hair has also, under peculiar circumstances, been replaced by
hair of the same color as the individual had in youth. We are even
assured by Bruley that in 1798 the white hair of a woman sixty years of
age changed to black a few days before her death. The bulbs in this
case were found of great size, and appeared gorged with a substance
from which the hair derived its color. The white hairs that remained,
on the contrary, grew from shriveled bulbs much smaller than those
producing the black. This patient died of phthisis.
A very singular case, published early in the century, was that of a
woman whose hair, naturally fair, assumed a tawny red color as often as
she was affected with a certain fever, and returned to its natural hue
as soon as the symptoms abated. Villerme alludes to the case of a young
lady, sixteen years of age, who had never suffered except from trifling
headaches, and who, in the winter of 1817, perceived that the hair
began to fall out from several parts of her head, so that before six
months were over she became entirely bald. In the beginning of January,
1819, her head became covered with a kind of black wool over those
places that were first denuded, and light brown hair began to develop
from the rest of the scalp. Some of this fell out again when it had
grown from three to four inches; the rest changed color at different
distances from its end and grew of a chestnut color from the roots. The
hair, half black, half chestnut, had a very singular appearance.
Alibert and Beigel relate cases of women with blond hair which all came
off after a severe fever (typhus in one case), and when it grew again
it was quite black. Alibert also saw a young man who lost his brown
hair after an illness, and after restoration it became red. According
to Crocker, in an idiotic girl of epileptic type (in an asylum at
Edinburgh), with alternating phases of stupidity and excitement, the
hair in the stupid phase was blond and in the excited condition red.
The change of color took place in the course of two or three days,
beginning first at the free ends, and remaining of the same tint for
seven or eight days. The pale hairs had more air-spaces than the darker
ones. There was much structural change in the brain and spinal cord.
Smyly of Dublin reported a case of suppurative disease of the temporal
bone, in which the hair changed from a mouse-color to a reddish-brown;
and Squire records a congenital case in a deaf mute, in whom the hair
on the left side was in light patches of true auburn and dark patches
of dark brown like a tortoise-shell cap; on the other side the hair was
a dark brown. Crocker mentions the changes which have occurred in rare
instances after death from dark brown to red.
Chemic colorations of various tints occur. Blue hair is seen in workers
in cobalt mines and indigo works; green hair in copper smelters; deep
red-brown hair in handlers of crude anilin; and the hair is dyed a
purplish-brown whenever chrysarobin applications used on a scalp come
in contact with an alkali, as when washed with soap. Among such cases
in older literature Blanchard and Marcellus Donatus speak of green
hair; Rosse saw two instances of the same, for one of which he could
find no cause; the other patient worked in a brass foundry.
Many curious causes are given for alopecia. Gilibert and Merlet mention
sexual excess; Marcellus Donatus gives fear; the Ephemerides speaks of
baldness from fright; and Leo Africanus, in his description of Barbary,
describes endemic baldness. Neyronis makes the following observation: A
man of seventy-three, convalescent from a fever, one morning, about six
months after recovery perceived that he had lost all his hair, even his
eyelashes, eyebrows, nostril-hairs, etc. Although his health continued
good, the hair was never renewed.
The principal anomalies of the nails observed are absence, hypertrophy,
and displacement of these organs. Some persons are born with
finger-nails and toe-nails either very rudimentary or entirely absent;
in others they are of great length and thickness. The Chinese nobility
allow their finger-nails to grow to a great length and spend much time
in the care of these nails. Some savage tribes have long and thick
nails resembling the claws of beasts, and use them in the same way as
the lower animals. There is a description of a person with
finger-nails that resembled the horns of a goat.
Neuhof, in his books on Tartary and China, says that many Chinamen have
two nails on the little toe, and other instances of double nails have
been reported.
The nails may be reversed or arise from anomalous positions.
Bartholinus speaks of nails from the inner side of the digits; in
another case, in which the fingers were wanting, he found the nails
implanted on the stumps. Tulpius says he knew of a case in which nails
came from the articulations of three digits; and many other curious
arrangements of nails are to be found.
Rouhuot sent a description and drawing of some monstrous nails to the
Academie des Sciences de Paris. The largest of these was the left great
toe-nail, which, from its extremity to its root, measured 4 3/4 inches;
the laminae of which it consisted were placed one over the other, like
the tiles on a roof, only reversed. This nail and several of the others
were of unequal thickness and were variously curved, probably on
account of the pressure of the shoe or the neighboring digits. Rayer
mentions two nails sent to him by Bricheteau, physician of the Hopital
Necker, belonging to an old woman who had lived in the Salpetriere.
They were very thick and spirally twisted, like the horns of a ram.
Saviard informs us that he saw a patient at the Hotel Dieu who had a
horn like that of a ram, instead of a nail, on each great toe, the
extremities of which were turned to the metatarsus and overlapped the
whole of the other toes of each foot. The skeleton of Simore, preserved
in Paris, is remarkable for the ankylosis of all the articulations and
the considerable size of all the nails. The fingers and toes, spread
out and ankylosed, ended in nails of great length and nearly of equal
thickness. A woman by the name of Melin, living in the last century in
Paris, was surnamed "the woman with nails;" according to the
description given by Saillant in 1776 she presented another and not
less curious instance of the excessive growth of the nails.
Musaeus gives an account of the nails of a girl of twenty, which grew
to such a size that some of those of the fingers were five inches in
length. They were composed of several layers, whitish interiorly,
reddish-gray on the exterior, and full of black points. These nails
fell off at the end of four months and were succeeded by others. There
were also horny laminae on the knees and shoulders and elbows which
bore a resemblance to nails, or rather talons. They were sensitive only
at the point of insertion into the skin. Various other parts of the
body, particularly the backs of the hands, presented these horny
productions. One of them was four inches in length. This horny growth
appeared after small-pox. Ash, in the Philosophical Transactions,
records a somewhat similar case in a girl of twelve.
Anomalies of the Teeth.--Pliny, Colombus, van Swieten, Haller,
Marcellus Donatus, Baudelocque, Soemmering, and Gardien all cite
instances in which children have come into the world with several teeth
already erupted. Haller has collected 19 cases of children born with
teeth. Polydorus Virgilus describes an infant who was born with six
teeth. Some celebrated men are supposed to have been born with teeth;
Louis XIV was accredited with having two teeth at birth. Bigot, a
physician and philosopher of the sixteenth century; Boyd, the poet;
Valerian, Richard III, as well as some of the ancient Greeks and
Romans, were reputed to have had this anomaly. The significance of the
natal eruption of teeth is not always that of vigor, as many of the
subjects succumb early in life. There were two cases typical of fetal
dentition shown before the Academie de Medecine de Paris. One of the
subjects had two middle incisors in the lower jaw and the other had one
tooth well through. Levison saw a female born with two central incisors
in the lower jaw.
Thomas mentions a case of antenatal development of nine teeth. Puech,
Mattei, Dumas, Belluzi, and others report the eruption of teeth in the
newborn. In Dumas' case the teeth had to be extracted on account of
ulceration of the tongue. Instances of triple dentition late in life
are quite numerous, many occurring after a hundred years. Mentzelius
speaks of a man of one hundred and ten who had nine new teeth. Lord
Bacon cites the case of a Countess Desmond, who when over a century old
had two new teeth; Hufeland saw an instance of dentition at one hundred
and sixteen; Nitzsch speaks of one at one hundred, and the Ephemerides
contain an account of a triple dentition at one hundred and twenty.
There is an account of a country laborer who lost all his teeth by the
time he arrived at his sixtieth year of age, but about a half year
afterward a new set made their appearance. Bisset mentions an account
of an old woman who acquired twelve molar teeth at the age of
ninety-eight. Carre notes a case of dental eruption in an individual of
eighty-five. Mazzoti speaks of a third dentition, and Ysabeau writes of
dentition of a molar at the age of ninety-two. There is a record of a
physician of the name of Slave who retained all his second teeth until
the age of eighty, when they fell out; after five years another set
appeared, which he retained until his death at one hundred. In the same
report there is mentioned an old Scotchman who died at one hundred and
ten, whose teeth were renewed at an advanced age after he had lost his
second teeth. One of the older journals speaks of dentition at seventy,
eighty-four, ninety, and one hundred and fourteen. The Philosophical
Transactions of London contain accounts of dentition at seventy-five
and eighty-one. Bassett tells of an old woman who had twelve molar
teeth at the age of eighty-eight. In France there is recorded dentition
at eighty-five and an account of an old man of seventy-three who had
six new teeth. Von Helmont relates an instance of triple dentition at
the same age. There is recorded in Germany an account of a woman of
ninety who had dentition at forty-seven and sixty-seven, each time a
new set of teeth appearing; Hunter and Petrequin have observed similar
cases. Carter describes an example of third dentition. Lison makes a
curious observation of a sixth dentition.
Edentulousness.--We have already noticed the association of congenital
alopecia with edentulousness, but, strange to say, Magitot has remarked
that "l'homme-chien," was the subject of defective dentition. Borellus
found atrophy of all the dental follicles in a woman of sixty who never
had possessed any teeth. Fanton-Touvet saw a boy of nine who had never
had teeth, and Fox a woman who had but four in both jaws; Tomes cites
several similar instances. Hutchinson speaks of a child who was
perfectly edentulous as to temporary teeth, but who had the permanent
teeth duly and fully erupted. Guilford describes a man of forty-eight,
who was edentulous from birth, who also totally lacked the sense of
smell, and was almost without the sense of taste; the surface of his
body was covered with fine hairs and he had never had visible
perspiration. This is probably the same case quoted in the foregoing
paragraph in regard to the anomalies of hair. Otto, quoted by Sedgwick,
speaks of two brothers who were both totally edentulous. It might be
interesting in this connection to note that Oudet found in a fetus at
term all the dental follicles in a process of suppuration, leaving no
doubt that, if the fetus had been born viable, it would have been
edentulous. Giraldes mentions the absence of teeth in an infant of
sixteen months. Bronzet describes a child of twelve, with only half
its teeth, in whom the alveolar borders receded as in age. Baumes
remarks that he had seen a man who never had any teeth.
The anomalies of excessive dentition are of several varieties, those of
simple supernumerary teeth, double or triple rows, and those in
anomalous positions. Ibbetson saw a child with five incisors in the
inferior maxillary bone, and Fanton-Touvet describes a young lady who
possessed five large incisors of the first dentition in the superior
maxilla. Rayer notes a case of dentition of four canines, which first
made their appearance after pain for eight days in the jaws and
associated with convulsions. In an Ethiopian Soemmering has seen one
molar too many on each side and in each jaw. Ploucquet and Tesmer have
seen five incisors and Fanchard six. Many persons have the
supernumerary teeth parallel with their neighbors, anteriorly or
posteriorly. Costa reports a case in which there were five canine teeth
in the upper jaw, two placed laterally on either side, and one on the
right side behind the other two. The patient was twenty-six years of
age, well formed and in good health.
In some cases there is fusion of the teeth. Pliny, Bartholinus, and
Melanthon pretend to have seen the union of all the teeth, making a
continuous mass. In the "Musee de l'ecole dentaire de Paris" there are
several milk-teeth, both of the superior and inferior maxilla, which
are fused together. Bloch cites a case in which there were two rows of
teeth in the superior maxilla. Hellwig has observed three rows of
teeth, and the Ephemerides contain an account of a similar anomaly.
Extraoral Dentition.--Probably the most curious anomaly of teeth is
that in which they are found in other than normal positions. Albinus
speaks of teeth in the nose and orbit; Borellus, in the palate;
Fabricius Hildanus, under the tongue; Schenck, from the palate; and
there are many similar modern records. Heister in 1743 wrote a
dissertation on extraoral teeth. The following is a recent quotation:--
"In the Norsk Magazin fur Laegevidenskaben, January, 1895, it is
reported that Dr. Dave, at a meeting of the Medical Society in
Christiania, showed a tooth removed from the nose of a woman aged
fifty-three. The patient had consulted him for ear-trouble, and the
tooth was found accidentally during the routine examination. It was
easily removed, having been situated in a small depression at the
junction of the floor and external wall of the nasal cavity, 22 mm.
from the external nares. This patient had all her teeth; they were
placed somewhat far from each other. The tooth resembled a milk canine;
the end of the imperfect root was covered with a fold of mucous
membrane, with stratified epithelium. The speaker suggested that part
of the mucous membrane of the mouth with its tooth-germ had become
impacted between the superior and premaxillary bones and thus cut off
from the cavity of the mouth. Another speaker criticised this fetal
dislocation and believed it to be due to an inversion--a development in
the wrong direction--by which the tooth had grown upward into the nose.
The same speaker also pointed out that the stratified epithelium of the
mucous membrane did not prove a connection with the cavity of the
mouth, as it is known that cylindric epithelium-cells after irritative
processes are replaced by flat ones."
Delpech saw a young man in 1829 who had an opening in the palatine
vault occasioned by the extraction of a tooth. This opening
communicated with the nasal fossa by a fracture of the palatine and
maxillary bones; the employment of an obturator was necessary. It is
not rare to see teeth, generally canine, make their eruption from the
vault of the palate; and these teeth are not generally supernumerary,
but examples of vice and deviation of position. Fanton-Touvet, however,
gives an example of a supernumerary tooth implanted in the palatine
arch. Branch a describes a little negro boy who had two large teeth in
the nose; his dentition was otherwise normal, but a portion of the nose
was destroyed by ulceration. Roy describes a Hindoo lad of fourteen who
had a tooth in the nose, supposed to have been a tumor. It was of the
canine type, and was covered with enamel to the junction with the root,
which was deeply imbedded in the side and upper part of the antrum. The
boy had a perfect set of permanent teeth and no deformity, swelling, or
cystic formation of the jaw. This was clearly a case of
extrafollicular development and eruption of the tooth in an anomalous
position, the peculiarity being that while in other similar cases the
crown of the tooth shows itself at the floor of the nasal cavity from
below upward, in this instance the dental follicle was transposed, the
eruption being from above downward. Hall cites an instance in which the
right upper canine of a girl erupted in the nose. The subject showed
marked evidence of hereditary syphilis. Carver describes a child who
had a tooth growing from the lower right eyelid. The number of
deciduous teeth was perfect; although this tooth was canine it had a
somewhat bulbulous fang.
Of anomalies of the head the first to be considered will be the
anencephalous monsters who, strange to say, have been known to survive
birth. Clericus cites an example of life for five days in a child
without a cerebrum. Heysham records the birth of a child without a
cerebrum and remarks that it was kept alive for six days. There was a
child born alive in Italy in 1831 without a brain or a cerebellum--in
fact, no cranial cavity--and yet it lived eleven hours. A somewhat
similar case is recorded in the last century. In the Philosophical
Transactions there is mentioned a child virtually born without a head
who lived four days; and Le Duc records a case of a child born without
brain, cerebellum, or medulla oblongata, and who lived half an hour.
Brunet describes an anencephalous boy born at term who survived his
birth. Saviard delivered an anencephalous child at term which died in
thirty-six hours. Lawrence mentions a child with brain and cranium
deficient that lived five days. Putnam speaks of a female
nosencephalous monster that lived twenty-nine hours. Angell and Elsner
in March, 1895, reported a case of anencephaly, or rather
pseudencephaly, associated with double divergent strabismus and limbs
in a state of constant spastic contraction. The infant lived eight
days. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire cites an example of anencephaly which
lived a quarter of an hour. Fauvel mentioned one that lived two hours,
and Sue describes a similar instance in which life persisted for seven
hours and distinct motions were noticed. Malacarne saw life in one for
twelve hours, and Mery has given a description of a child born without
brain that lived almost a full day and took nourishment. In the
Hotel-Dieu in Paris in 1812 Serres saw a monster of this type which
lived three days, and was fed on milk and sugared water, as no nurse
could be found who was willing to suckle it.
Fraser mentions a brother and sister, aged twenty and thirty,
respectively, who from birth had exhibited signs of defective
development of the cerebellum. They lacked power of coordination and
walked with a drunken, staggering gait; they could not touch the nose
with the finger when their eyes were shut, etc. The parents of these
unfortunate persons were perfectly healthy, as were the rest of their
family. Cruveilhier cites a case of a girl of eleven who had absolutely
no cerebellum, with the same symptoms which are characteristic in such
cases. There is also recorded the history of a man who was deficient in
the corpus callosum; at the age of sixty-two, though of feeble
intelligence, he presented no signs of nervous disorder. Claude Bernard
made an autopsy on a woman who had no trace of olfactory lobes, and
after a minute inquiry into her life he found that her sense of smell
had been good despite her deficiency.
Buhring relates the history of a case somewhat analogous to viability
of anencephalous monsters. It was a bicephalous child that lived
thirty-two hours after he had ligated one of its heads.
{footnote} The argument that the brain is not the sole organ of the
mind is in a measure substantiated by a wonderful case of a decapitated
rooster, reported from Michigan. A stroke of the knife bad severed the
larynx and removed the whole mass of the cerebrum, leaving the inner
aspect and base of the skull exposed. The cerebrum was partly removed;
the external auditory meatus was preserved. Immediately after the
decapitation the rooster was left to its supposed death struggles, but
it ran headless to the barn, where it was secured and subsequently fed
by pushing corn down its esophagus, and allowing water to trickle into
this tube from the spout of an oil-can. The phenomena exhibited by the
rooster were quite interesting. It made all the motions of pecking,
strutted about, flapped its wings, attempted to crow, but, of course,
without making any sound. It exhibited no signs of incoordination, but
did not seem to hear. A ludicrous exhibition was the absurd, sidelong
pas seul made toward the hens.
Ward mentions an instance of congenital absence of the corpora
callosum. Paget and Henry mention cases in which the corpora callosum,
the fornix, and septum lucidum were imperfectly formed. Maunoir
reports congenital malformation of the brain, consisting of almost
complete absence of the occipital lobe. The patient died at the
twenty-eighth month. Combettes reports the case of a girl who died at
the age of eleven who had complete absence of the cerebellum in
addition to other minor structural defects; this was probably the case
mentioned by Cruveilhier.
Diminution in volume of the head is called microcephaly. Probably the
most remarkable case on record is that mentioned by Lombroso. The
individual was called "l'homme-oiseau," or the human bird, and his
cranial capacity was only 390 c.c. Lombroso speaks of another
individual called "l'homme-lapin," or man-rabbit, whose cranium was
only slightly larger than that of the other, measuring 490 mm. in
circumference. Castelli alludes to endemic microcephaly among some of
the peoples of Asia. We also find it in the Caribbean Islands, and from
the skulls and portraits of the ancient Aztecs we are led to believe
that they were also microcephalic.
Two creatures of celebrity were Maximo and Bartola, who for twenty-five
years have been shown in America and in Europe under the name of the
"Aztecs" or the "Aztec children". They were male and female and very
short, with heads resembling closely the bas-reliefs on the ancient
Aztec temples of Mexico. Their facial angle was about 45 degrees, and
they had jutting lips and little or no chin. They wore their hair in an
enormous bunch to magnify the deformity. These curiosities were born in
Central America and were possibly half Indian and Negro. They were
little better than idiots in point of intelligence.
Figure 92 represents a microcephalic youth known as the "Mexican wild
boy," who was shown with the Wallace circus.
Virchow exhibited a girl of fourteen whose face was no larger than that
of a new-born child, and whose head was scarcely as large as a man's
fist. Magitot reported a case of a microcephalic woman of thirty who
weighed 70 pounds.
Hippocrates and Strabonius both speak of head-binding as a custom
inducing artificial microcephaly, and some tribes of North American
Indians still retain this custom.
As a rule, microcephaly is attended with associate idiocy and arrested
development of the rest of the body. Ossification of the fontanelles in
a mature infant would necessarily prevent full development of the
brain. Osiander and others have noticed this anomaly. There are cases
on record in which the fontanelles have remained open until adulthood.
Augmentation of the volume of the head is called macrocephaly, and
there are a number of curious examples related. Benvenuti describes an
individual, otherwise well formed, whose head began to enlarge at
seven. At twenty-seven it measured over 37 inches in circumference and
the man's face was 15 inches in height; no other portion of his body
increased abnormally; his voice was normal and he was very intelligent.
He died of apoplexy at the age of thirty.
Fournier speaks of a cranium in the cabinet of the Natural History
Museum of Marseilles of a man by the name of Borghini, who died in
Reading Tips
Use arrow keys to navigate
Press 'N' for next chapter
Press 'P' for previous chapter