Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
The child presented by the
breech, and by the absence of limbs caused much difficulty in
diagnosis. The three stages of labor were one and one-half hours,
forty-five minutes, and five minutes, respectively. The accompanying
illustration shows the appearance of the limbs at the time of report.
Figure 10 represents a negro boy, the victim of intrauterine
amputation, who learned to utilize his toes for many purposes. The
illustration shows his mode of holding his pen.
There is an instance reported in which a child at full term was born
with an amputated arm, and at the age of seventeen the stump was
scarcely if at all smaller than the other. Blake speaks of a case of
congenital amputation of both the upper extremities. Gillilam a
mentions a case that shows the deleterious influence of even the weight
of a fetal limb resting on a cord or band. His case was that of a
fetus, the product of a miscarriage of traumatic origin; the soft
tissues were almost cut through and the bone denuded by the limb
resting on one of the two umbilical cords, not encircling it, but in a
sling. The cord was deeply imbedded in the tissues.
The coilings of the cord are not limited to compression about the
extremities alone, but may even decapitate the head by being firmly
wrapped several times about the neck. According to Ballantyne, there is
in the treatise De Octimestri Partu, by Hippocrates, a reference to
coiling of the umbilical cord round the neck of the fetus. This coiling
was, indeed, regarded as one of the dangers of the eighth month, and
even the mode of its production is described. It is said that if the
cord he extended along one side of the uterus, and the fetus lie more
to the other side, then when the culbute is performed the funis must
necessarily form a loop round the neck or chest of the infant. If it
remain in this position, it is further stated, the mother will suffer
later and the fetus will either perish or be born with difficulty. If
the Hippocratic writers knew that this coiling is sometimes quite
innocuous, they did not in any place state the fact.
The accompanying illustrations show the different ways in which the
funis may be coiled, the coils sometimes being as many as 8.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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