ORIGIN OF MONSTERS 553 



F. THE MICROSCOPIC ANATOMY OF SOME AMORPHOUS MONSTERS 



. As has been stated in a preceding chapter (cf. p. 498) these 

 products of pathological development, due to treatment of eggs 

 with butyric acid or acetone, resemble, when examined in toto, 

 very much the amorphous monsters of man. Schwalbe ('07) has 

 already pointed out that anatomical examination of the latter, 

 often discloses conditions which are of interest from the onto- 

 mechanical point of view. Bearing in mind the relative rarity 

 of the spontaneous occurrence of such monsters, an anatomical 

 investigation of the amorphous monsters recorded in my obser- 

 vations would appear to be desirable. My study of these em- 

 bryos, however, being as yet incomplete, I shall confine myself 

 for the present time to the following description of three such 

 monsters with a \dew of returning to the subject in a later pub- 

 lication. 



In figure 44 is seen a very misshapen embryo which makes the 

 impression of coalesced, greatly malformed twins. 



Examination of the entire series of sections, however, proves 

 that the appearance of the embryo in toto is grossly misleading. 

 For the case is not one of coalescence of two embryos, but rather 

 of a peculiar disarrangement and distortion of parts of one 

 embryo's body. 



In the first sections there appears the deformed head of an 

 embryo and a transversely cut tail in which the notochord only 

 can be distinctly recognized. Between the head and the tail 

 and partly under the head there is between the yolk and yolk- 

 sac a space which is filled with a plasma-hke mass. The brain 

 of the embryo is greatly deformed and unilobed. One of the 

 eyes has developed in a rather rudimentary manner; its retina 

 and lens, however, are well differentiated. The other eye is 

 lacking. Only a well developed lens can be seen on this side, 

 and in some sections the neighboring nervous tissue, arranged 

 in a cup-hke manner around the lens, exhibits some resemblance 

 to a retina in the earliest stages of differentiation. At this 

 level there can be seen in the adjacent cross-sectioned tail, 

 besides the notochord, also transversely cut coils of the intes- 



