Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
CLASS IX.--Of "Lusus naturae" none is more curious than that of
duplication of the lower extremities. Pare says that on January 9,
1529, there was living in Germany a male infant having four legs and
four arms. In Paris, at the Academie des Sciences, on September 6,
1830, there was presented by Madame Hen, a midwife, a living male child
with four legs, the anus being nearly below the middle of the third
buttock; and the scrotum between the two left thighs, the testicles not
yet descended. There was a well-formed and single pelvis, and the
supernumerary legs were immovable. Aldrovandus mentions several similar
instances, and gives the figure of one born in Rome; he also describes
several quadruped birds. Bardsley speaks of a male child with one head,
four arms, four legs, and double generative organs. He gives a portrait
of the child when it was a little over a year old. Heschl published in
Vienna in 1878 a description of a girl of seventeen, who instead of
having a duplication of the superior body, as in "Millie-Christine, the
two-headed nightingale," had double parts below the second lumbar
vertebra. Her head and upper body resembled a comely, delicate girl of
twelve.
Wells a describes Mrs. B., aged twenty, still alive and healthy. The
duplication in this case begins just above the waist, the spinal column
dividing at the third lumbar vertebra, below this point everything
being double. Micturition and defecation occur at different times, but
menstruation occurs simultaneously. She was married at nineteen, and
became pregnant a year later on the left side, but abortion was induced
at the fourth month on account of persistent nausea and the expectation
of impossible delivery. Whaley, in speaking of this case, said Mrs. B.
utilized her outside legs for walking; he also remarks that when he
informed her that she was pregnant on the left side she replied, "I
think you are mistaken; if it had been on my right side I would come
nearer believing it;"--and after further questioning he found, from the
patient's observation, that her right genitals were almost invariably
used for coitus. Bechlinger of Para, Brazil, describes a woman of
twenty-five, a native of Martinique, whose father was French and mother
a quadroon, who had a modified duplication of the lower body. There was
a third leg attached to a continuation of the processus coceygeus of
the sacrum, and in addition to well developed mammae regularly
situated, there were two rudimentary ones close together above the
pubes. There were two vaginae and two well-developed vulvae, both
having equally developed sensations. The sexual appetite was markedly
developed, and coitus was practised in both vaginae. A somewhat similar
case, possibly the same, is that of Blanche Dumas, born in 1860. She
had a very broad pelvis, two imperfectly developed legs, and a
supernumerary limb attached to the symphysis, without a joint, but with
slight passive movement. There was a duplication of bowel, bladder, and
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