Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Brodie speaks of a case in which fetal remains were taken from the
abdomen of a girl of two and one-half years. Gaither describes a child
of two years and nine months, supposed to be affected with ascites, who
died three hours after the physician's arrival. In its abdomen was
found a fetus weighing almost two pounds and connected to the child by
a cord resembling an umbilical cord. This child was healthy for about
nine months, and had a precocious longing for ardent spirits, and drank
freely an hour before its death.
Blundell says that he knew "a boy who was literally and without evasion
with child, for the fetus was contained in a sac communicating with the
abdomen and was connected to the side of the cyst by a short umbilical
cord; nor did the fetus make its appearance until the boy was eight or
ten years old, when after much enlargement of pregnancy and subsequent
flooding the boy died." The fetus, removed after death, on the whole
not very imperfectly formed, was of the size of about six or seven
months' gestation. Bury cites an account of a child that had a second
imperfectly developed fetus in its face and scalp. There was a boy by
the name of Bissieu who from the earliest age had a pain in one of his
left ribs; this rib was larger than the rest and seemed to have a tumor
under it. He died of phthisis at fourteen, and after death there was
found in a pocket lying against the transverse colon and communicating
with it all the evidences of a fetus.
At the Hopital de la Charite in Paris, Velpeau startled an audience of
500 students and many physicians by saying that he expected to find a
rudimentary fetus in a scrotal tumor placed in his hands for operation.
His diagnosis proved correct, and brought him resounding praise, and
all wondered as to his reasons for expecting a fetal tumor. It appears
that he had read with care a report by Fatti of an operation on the
scrotum of a child which had increased in size as the child grew, and
was found to contain the ribs, the vertebral column, the lower
extremities as far as the knees, and the two orbits of a fetus; and
also an account of a similar operation performed by Wendt of Breslau on
a Silesian boy of seven. The left testicle in this case was so swollen
that it hung almost to the knee, and the fetal remains removed weighed
seven ounces.
Sulikowski relates an instance of congenital fetation in the umbilicus
of a girl of fourteen, who recovered after the removal of the anomaly.
Aretaeos described to the members of the medical fraternity in Athens
the case of a woman of twenty-two, who bore two children after a seven
months' pregnancy. One was very rudimentary and only 21 inches long,
and the other had an enormous head resembling a case of hydrocephalus.
On opening the head of the second fetus, another, three inches long,
was found in the medulla oblongata, and in the cranial cavity with it
were two additional fetuses, neither of which was perfectly formed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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