No. 1.] ORIGIN OF HUMAN MONSTERS. 55 
our most careful consideration, for in them we are to find 
the first pathological changes. In studying the villi of the 
chorion in these specimens I tried to remain on the safe side 
when I stated that they were fibrous or cedematous, and no 
doubt erred correspondingly when I stated that others were 
normal in structure. In the course of time I found that in 
most chorions which were markedly pathological a stringy 
mass of fibrin or mucus more or less rich in leucocytes was 
found between the villi. In specimens undoubtedly normal and 
containing a normal embryo this stringy mass was never 
found. Occasionally a stringy mass was found between the 
villi in ova which appeared to be perfectly normal. A good 
example is found in an ovum which appeared perfectly normal 
with the exception of a lateral pouch to it, containing an em- 
bryo four millimeters long which is slightly deformed’? (No. 
80). Sections of the villi show that they are perfect in form. 
and in structure, being covered with a well-developed syncy- 
tium. Between the villi there are strands of a fibrin-like mass, 
in which there are imbedded a number of leucocytes. Another 
specimen which has been described by.me as a normal one 
contains a similar substance between its villi‘? (No. 12). In 
this specimen there is an unusually well developed magma 
reticulé and the head is underdeveloped. The neural tube 
is wide open at both ends, and it seems to me that its form 
is not quite normal. It came from a woman twenty-three 
years old who had been pregnant twice, aborting both times. 
Two other specimens may be mentioned, one which I have 
also described as a very young normal ovum because I knew 
that the abortion had not been a natural one.** The woman 
had had a continuous hemorrhage for seven days before the 
abortion, and since then I have learned that the detachment of 
a normal ovum for a much shorter time than seven days is 
“Mall, Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports, IX, Fig. 80. 
"Embryo No. 12, Journal of Morph., X, 1897, Arch. fiir Anat., Suppl. 
Bd., 1897, Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports, IX, Fig. 12. 
®No. 11, Anat. Anz., VIII, 1893, Journal of Morph. X, and Johns 
Hopkins Hospital Reports, IX, Figs. 14 and 15. 
