ORIGIN OF MONSTERS 563 



dence of pregnancy with at least such disturbances of metabolism 

 as diabetes. 



This coincidence has been found to be fatal to the embr^^o. 

 Thus, according to Seitz ('13) diabetes melitus has for a long 

 time been considered as causing steriUty in women. It is quite 

 possible, I think, that in such individuals the ovum, due to toxic 

 changes, might be expelled soon after conception, that such 

 early abortions might have been mistaken for menstruation and 

 that while perhaps no sterility existed a similar effect has been 

 mistaken for it. 



For, to quote Seitz: 



erst als Duncan ijber mehrere Falle von Graviditat 

 bei Zuckerkrankheit berichtete, anderten sich die Ansichten iind nach 

 den vorliegenden Statistiken iiber insgesamt 427 Frauen in gesehlechts- 

 fahigen Alter darf man annehmen, dass bei rund 5 procent der dia- 

 betischen Frauen Schwangerschaft eintritt. 



The influence of diabetes on the development of the offspring 

 is according to Seitz very disastrous: 



Besonders ungimstig ist die Riickwirkung des Diabetes auf des Kind. 

 Ubereinstimmend berichten die Statistiken, dass rund 50 procent aUer 

 Kinder intrauterin zugrunde gehen und zwar kann der Tod des Kindes 

 jederzeit eintreten, sowohl in den ersten Monaten der Schwanger- 

 schaft als audi noch gegen Ende Ein weiterer Teil der 



Kinder wird frlihzeitig und schwach geboren; wiederholt wurde auch 

 Erkrankung an Polj^urie, an kongenitalem Diabetes und an Hydro- 

 cephalus beobachtet. 



The data quoted above are, obviously, insufficient and, com- 

 ing, as they do, from clinicians, they leave us altogether in the 

 dark regarding the morphological effects of maternal diabetes 

 on the embryo. The desu-ability of comprehensive data regard- 

 ing fetuses aborted by diabetic mothers as well as those suffering 

 from other diseases of metabohsm can not be m'ged enough upon 

 physicians, as they may not infrequently chance to observe 

 these experiments of nature. But even more desirable would 

 seem to be experiments on mammals. Here the various patho- 

 logical conditions of metabohsm must be imitated by experiment 

 as closely as possible, and the animals so diseased mated in 



THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY, VOL. 21, NO. 4 



