Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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