TERATOLOGY. 



969 



nected with the pelvis of the perfect foetus 

 (Nmnan, Osiancler, Haller). 



4. Separate anterior or posterior extremi- 

 ties connected with some part of the perfect 

 foetus (W. Vrolik, Von Baer). 



All these varieties are indicated under the 

 names of gastromc/c, pygomele, and melomele. 



Third Species. The appendix is an acc- 

 phalus with four extremities, The union has 

 as yet been observed only at the epigastric re- 

 gion of the supporting icetus, through which 

 the abdominal cavity was common to the two 

 bodies. In the appendix the genital organs 

 existed, but the anus was closed. In many 

 cases, the evacuation of urine has been ob- 

 served; the appendix showed circulation of 

 blood ; it had its own temperature, and was 

 dependent for nutrition on the chief or perfect 

 body. In the interior were found uropoictic 

 organs, vessels connected with those of the 

 chief body, and an imperfect intestinal canal 

 (Otto, Serres). In the supporting fcetus are 

 sometimes found traces of double organs 

 (Otto, Serres, Kosenstiel). 



Fourth Species. The appendix a com- 

 plete body with a head and four extremilii s 

 (Bartholinus). This form of heteradelph 

 makes the transition to anterior duplicity. 

 The appendix has but to be more equally pro- 

 portioned to the chief body, and a completely 

 double monster is formed. The best ex- 

 ample of this occurred in the person of a cer- 

 tain Lazarus Colloreclo, Avho lived for some 

 length of time. His portrait is given by Bar- 

 tholinus. 



This very peculiar appendix never took 

 food, nor had it evacuations of faeces. But 

 the organic and the animal life appeared to 

 be very well developed, as its cutaneous ex- 

 halation, its movements of different parts 

 of its body, and the fact of its sleeping, 

 showed. 



The common character, by which this whole 

 class of heteradelphs is distinguished, consists 

 in the comparatively smaller size, and, in ge- 

 neral, the defective developement, of the part 

 which is termed the parasite. Imagine this 

 difference removed by the fuller developement 

 of the parasite, by its obtaining all its own 

 organic apparatus, and by its growing part 

 passu with the other, and an exact idea of 

 complete duplicity will be formed. It will 

 be observed also, that in the several members 

 of this class there is a regularly graduated 

 series, from those in which the superfluous 

 part is only an ill-developed limb, to those in 

 which the parasite differs from the chief in 

 nothing but its inferior size and its depend- 

 ence for nutrition. The cases of the last kind 

 are, however, rare. I know but three, of 

 which that of the said Lazarus Colloredo, de- 

 scribed by Bartholinus, is the most remarkable. 

 Much more commonly the parasite, even when 

 it possesses its full numerical complement of 

 parts, bears many signs of defective develope- 

 ment ; it is hare-lipped, or a cyclops, or has 

 atresia ani, or some other malformation from 

 arrest of developement. All this seems to me 

 to prove, that in heteradelphs there are 



always the rudiments of two bodies, though 

 one or both may be defective. 



The beings thus formed have rarely lived 

 man}' years after birth, and the histories of 

 the few that have survived are, for the most 

 part, well known in the records of medicine. 

 Perhaps the most remarkable is that of the 

 Chinese A-ke, of whom and his parasite 

 little models are to be found in most of the 

 anatomical museums of Europe. The para- 

 site's life is, in general, only vegetative. In 

 one of the three cases, indeed, in which it 

 possessed all the constituent parts of a body, 

 it moved its limbs, and appeared to have its 

 own sensations ; but in the others, less per- 

 fectly formed, even these signs of individual 

 life were absent ; and in only one, that of 

 the Chinese A-ke, had the man who bore 

 the parasite any voluntary power over its 

 limbs. The nutrition of the parasite appears 

 to depend entirely on the body to which it is 

 fixed, and through which it both receives its 

 nutritive materials and discharges its excre- 

 tions. The one increases and decreases in 

 size with the other; and, of course, the para- 

 site dies with the individual to which it is 

 attached. The influence which, in its turn, 

 it exercises on its supporter is not always 

 important. In the heteradelphs that die 

 early, death commonly ensues from the mal- 

 formation of the main body ; if they survive, 

 the parasite seems to do harm only, as an 

 ordinary tumour would, by its weight, and by 

 abstracting a certain amount of nourishment, 

 so that those who, thus burdened, have grown 

 up to childhood or manhood have usually 

 been thin and delicate, like men subject to 

 some unnatural waste. But, nevertheless, it 

 will always be better to tolerate this evil than 

 to risk an operation of removal, when the re- 

 sults of all the examinations yet made prove 

 that the parasite is deeply and by important 

 organs connected with its supporter. The only 

 exception which I know to the correctness of 

 my opinion is the case in which Mr. Blizard 

 removed, with complete success, from the 

 sacrum of a child, a congenital tumour, which 

 seems to have been a parasite. 



III. Double Monsters. 

 1. Anterior duplicity. 



It has been already said that some of 

 the rarer kinds of hcteradelpliia approximate 

 closely to the double monsters. In all the 

 cases that stand nearest to the transition, the 

 parasite has been found adherent to the epi- 

 gastric region ; and the kind of duplicity 

 which is most closely related to them, is 

 therefore that in which the two bodies adhere 

 by their anterior surfaces, or what we call 

 anterior duplicity. 



The most complete examples of duplicity 

 yet knowrr*are found in this class, whose dis- 

 tinctive characters are, that two bodies, in a 

 state of nearly equal developement, are placed 

 exactly opposite to one another, with their 

 sterna connected together, and with their 

 abdominal cavities either partially or com- 

 pletely coalesced. Here, however, as in all 



