[Illustration: FIG. 23.—Double macrostoma, showing the presence of
auricular appendages. (_Tillmanns._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—Macrostoma with auricular appendages.
(_Fergusson._)]
Associated with macrostoma is often to be noticed some abnormal condition
of the external ear, either defective development or the production of
accessory auricles (Figs. 23 and 24). In a case of bilateral macrostoma
recently under my own care, there was a well-marked accessory auricle.
This complication was first pointed out by M. Debout.
One or two observers (Morgan, Colson[23]) have noticed a small papillary
projection on the red margin of the cleft, indicating the position where
the true mouth ended, and due to the insertion thereat of the divided
orbicularis oris.
For long the very existence of this macrostomatous deformity was
doubted, but cases have been recognised more or less since 1715, when
Muralt pictured it for the first time. A _résumé_ of all the earlier
cases has been made by M. Debout,[24] whilst Roulland[25] and Pilz[26]
have gathered together some of the later.
Macrostoma is not only attended by great disfigurement, but is also
troublesome from the impossibility of the child retaining its saliva, and
the food escaping during mastication. Suckling can be performed if the
nurse’s nipple be long, but is difficult otherwise. This deformity is,
perhaps, more frequently associated with defective cerebral power than
any other of the facial clefts, a large proportion of the subjects having
been idiots.
MANDIBULAR CLEFT.
This condition is one of the rarest that we have had to describe, so much
so that Roux and Cruveilhier denied its existence, and Fergusson had seen
but one case. Bouisson[27] in 1840 mentions some three or four earlier
cases, and records one that he had seen _post mortem_ himself. Since that
date some six or eight instances have been noted, and the latest, with
some excellent pictures, is described by Wölfler[28] (Fig. 25).
The cleft extends in different cases to a variable extent. Thus Nicati,
Couronue, F. Petit, and Ammon saw clefts implicating the lower lip alone.
Ribell[29] operated on a cleft extending to the chin, through which
the saliva was continuously dribbling. Faucon (1868) and Lannelongue
(1879) recorded clefts of the lip and mandible conjoined, and in both
cystic swellings (presumably of the dermoid type) were found between the
segments. Parisé’s (1862)[30] and Wölfler’s cases were also associated
with cleft of the tongue, through its whole thickness in the former, and
only at its tip in the latter.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—Mandibular cleft, showing the divided lower lip,
the segments being held together by cicatricial bands. (_Wölfler._)]
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