7-4 Miscellanies in JS'afuyal ttistonj. 



e 



certe exemplum quasi de industria ad conformandam prar- 

 ccptoris senientiam factum est." Bocrhaave says expressly 

 of tliL tpidermis : " Constat vasoruni cxhalantium et inha- 

 lantiuiii innumerabilium extremis annulis, inter se connatis." 



Wiiere the excresrences were longest and thickest, thcy 

 appearcd to me to be like those which I ha\-c seen in the 

 elephant vw.^-:' he forehead and above the trunk. 



The colou\ of them in general appeared to be a chesnut 

 or coffee brown. This however was the case at the surface, 

 for in other parts the larger onc3 were rather yellowish 



ivrnv. 



The hair of the skm appeared sometimes as if grovai into 

 the horny substance of these excrescences. 



Eoth the brothers, as well as the father and grandfather, 

 bad had the smallpox, in the last stage of \\hich they lost 

 the greater part of their excrescer.ccs ; l)ut they were soon 

 gradually reproduced. In general thev drop off singly from 

 time to time, especially in winter ; but new ones gradually 

 grow up. When they are in any manner torn off, the skin 

 which lies under them readily begins to bleed. 



The skin on the top of the head before, and especially in 

 the oldest, forms a kind of broad callosit\-, which has some 

 resemblance to the tofis of the camel. 



The perspiration of these tv\'o brothers exhibits nothing 

 uncommon, no perceptible smell. Sec. and during great 

 heats or violent exercise thev sweat like other men. 



I am acquainted with only two cases which have a real 

 analogy to that of the porcupine men from Suffolk. The 

 one is the boy from Biseglia, of whom Stalp van der Wiel 

 lias given a ligure and some account, iii his Observations* : 

 tlie other is a female child, three years of age, at Vienna, 

 whose historv and an account of the cure ha\ e been pub- 

 lished by J. A. von Brambillasf. In both the face was 

 free from these excrescences, but the palms of the hands 

 and the soles of the feet were the most covered with them. 

 An observation made in regard to the boy chrresponds ex- 

 actly with a circumstance related of the porcupine man : "De- 

 lapsis vcteribus, novae illico succedebant squamas, quibiis 

 avulsis mox effluebat sangi.us :" and the case is the same 

 with whatBrambilla says of the girl : " she was born with a 

 smooth and somewhat yellow skm, but in six weeks it be- 

 came brown, and in the course of a )ear bkick and bristly." 

 The last-mentioned child was freed from its bristly warts 



■' Obsen-at, part ii, p. 37.;.. 



t Abhandlungen dtr Jostphinischcn mcJicinisch-chirurgischen Akad. 

 vol. i. p. 371. 



