No. 1.] ORIGIN OF HUMAN MONSTERS. 245 
if the great fire we had recently could have played any part 
in this trouble, as she felt well up to that time, and the fright 
due to the fear that the fire would burn out her neighbor- 
hood, too, kept her in a state of great excitement for about 
24 hours.” 
The external surface of the ovum is normal in appearance, 
but when it was opened it was found to contain a deformed 
embryo lying beside a very large amnion. Sections of the 
chorion show that its structure is somewhat hyaline and the 
villi are devoid of blood-vessels. ‘The embryo and membranes 
were cut together and the sections show that the amnion is 
greatly hypertrophied, folded and torn, and that the embryo 
Fic. 246b.—Embryo covered with folds of the amnion. Io times. 
is deformed and injured but lying outside of the amnion. The 
heart and great blood-vessels are empty, the brain is distended 
and partly filled with round cells; together they give the 
appearance of an embryo of the beginning of the third week. 
No liver can be found, but there are loops of intestine present, 
as during the fourth week. ‘The otic vesicles are well defined, 
but the optic vesicles are wanting. 
No umbilical vesicle can be found, but this may have been 
lost when the amnion was torn. The amnion, however, runs 
down in a thickened ridge which contains two large blood- 
