No. 1.] ORIGIN OF HUMAN MONSTERS. 51 
experience that “uterine scrapings after abortion rarely show 
signs of endometritis, although they contain many leucocytes 
and characteristic masses of fibrin. When the abortions from 
one woman are frequent she is undoubtedly syphilitic.” An- 
other argues that endometritis rarely shows the presence of 
inflammation, and states further that inflammation of this 
organ is usually confined to the cervical canal. Still another 
states that endometritis, which is a rare affection, is usually 
due to the gonococcus or sometimes to an acute infection. At 
this place it may be pertinent to state that pathological ova 
and monsters, which are quite frequently found in other 
mammals, cannot be due to syphilis or gonorrhcea, but are 
often accompanied with a peculiar kind of separation of the 
chorion. In such specimens a large mass of mucus and no 
blood encircles the ovum, and from all indications the embryo 
has died suddenly, for it is not deformed. It is not necessary 
to introduce more opinions, for they will not lead us nearer 
to a solution of the problem. For the present, the opinions as 
expressed by Ahlfeld and by Williams are the best at our 
disposal. Both are able scientific obstetricians, Ahlfeld being 
in addition a teratologist, and Williams a leading obstetrical 
pathologist. 
It is well known that a woman who aborts a pathological 
ovum or gives birth to a monster will probably abort again, 
and runs a greater chance of giving birth to a second monster. 
Teratologists are inclined to read these facts in favor of the 
germinal origin of monsters, which may even be hereditary. 
Since there is no recorded case of a woman giving birth to 
a second polysomatous monster, while there are numerous 
cases in which women bore second merosomatous monsters, 
we can as well consider the former as “accidental” and the 
latter as due to some change in the uterus and not inherited 
through either the germ or the sperm. (Certain varieties like 
those of the extremities and anatomical anomalies must be 
. excluded from this discussion, for they are known to be ger- 
minal and are hereditary.) To be sure, we cannot exclude 
the possibility of a certain per cent as being germinal, that is, 
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