438 Harris Hawthorne Wilder 



Cosmobia, although a very hopeful line of research has been indicated 

 by these experiments. 



The voluminous paper of Mall," is one of the most recent contribu- 

 tions to teratology, and consists of two parts, a general one, in which 

 he discusses principles and conclusions, and gives a summary of his 

 specimens, arranged chronologically; and, secondly, a special part, in 

 which he describes 163 abnormal human embryos. The author's center 

 of interest is clearly pathological rather than biological, and among this 

 large number of abnormalities there is not a single one that is an 

 undoubted Cosmobion. In his introduction he draws a distinction, 

 indeed, between two groups of monsters, "those which are hereditary 

 and germinal, and those which are not hereditary but due to mechanical 

 injury or disease," but a farther reading shows this distinction has 

 nothing to do with that between Cosmobia and all other kinds of mon- 

 sters, as defined here.- To the "germinal" group he ascribes such cases 

 as "polydactylism" [hyperdactylism] and hare-lip, and expresses his 

 opinion that they "cannot be produced experimentally." In the "me- 

 chanical" group he places such cases as spina bifida, anencephaly, and a 

 few others, including cyclopia. The first group he calls "abnormal," 

 the second "pathological." The fact that he does not mention in this 

 connection any form of diplopage, while he includes cyclopia in the 

 pathological group shows clearly that his classification is quite a differ- 

 ent one from that emphasized here, and that his "germinal" group does 

 not have any relation to the conception of Cosmobia. His insistence that 

 the cases included in this group can never be produced as the result of 

 an experiment is of interest here, "We must divide monsters into two 

 groups, those in which the proper conditions to produce them are already 

 in the germ (are therefore inherited), and those due to certain external 

 influences which act upon the egg after it is fertilized. It is obvious 

 that only the second group can be considered in any experiments made 

 upon the embryo." 



Although in this place he says nothing concerning double ("poly- 

 somatous") monsters, he treats them later as monsters which can be pro- 

 duced experimentally, thus showing that he places them, together with 

 Cyclopia, in the mechanical or pathological class. It is also to be noted 

 that he uses the phrase "comparative teratology" (p. 21) in a sense 

 similar to that of comparative anatomy, i. e., the study of monsters of 



'•Mam.. F. p. A study of the causes underlying the origin of Human ^lon- 

 sters. Journal of Morphology, Vol. XIX, No. 1, February, 1908. 



