Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Broca speaks of a fetal cyst being passed in the urine of a man of
sixty-one; the cyst contained remnants of hair, bone, and cartilage.
Atlee submits quite a remarkable case of congenital ventral gestation,
the subject being a girl of six, who recovered after the discharge of
the fetal mass from the abdomen. McIntyre speaks of a child of eleven,
playing about and feeling well, but whose abdomen progressively
increased in size 1 1/2 inches each day. After ten days there was a
large fluctuating mass on the right side; the abdomen was opened and
the mass enucleated; it was found to contain a fetal mass weighing
nearly five pounds, and in addition ten pounds of fluid were removed.
The child made an early recovery. Rogers mentions a fetus that was
found in a man's bladder. Bouchacourt reports the successful
extirpation of the remains of a fetus from the rectum of a child of
six. Miner describes a successful excision of a congenital gestation.
Modern literature is full of examples, and nearly every one of the
foregoing instances could be paralleled from other sources. Rodriguez
is quoted as reporting that in July, 1891, several newspapers in the
city of Mexico published, under the head of "A Man-mother," a wonderful
story, accompanied by wood-cuts, of a young man from whose body a great
surgeon had extracted a "perfectly developed fetus." One of these
wood-cuts represented a tumor at the back of a man opened and
containing a crying baby. In commenting upon this, after reviewing
several similar cases of endocymian monsters that came under his
observation in Mexico, Rodriguez tells what the case which had been so
grossly exaggerated by the lay journals really was: An Indian boy, aged
twenty-two, presented a tumor in the sacrococcygeal region measuring 53
cm. in circumference at the base, having a vertical diameter of 17 cm.
and a transverse diameter of 13 cm. It had no pedicle and was fixed,
showing unequal consistency. At birth this tumor was about the size of
a pigeon's egg. A diagnosis of dermoid cyst was made and two operations
were performed on the boy, death following the second. The skeleton
showed interesting conditions; the rectum and pelvic organs were
natural, and the contents of the cyst verified the diagnosis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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