A FETUS WITHIN A FETUS. 119 



the excellent case occurring in a woman, and de- 

 scribed, in 1862, by Prof. Generali an observation 

 unique in the teratology of mankind namely, a 

 case of parasitic monstrosity, in which, however, the 

 designation 'dental cyst,' so inexact in itself, is in- 

 appropriate and false);" that "the ovarian cysts in 

 women, in which have been' found pieces of bone and 

 cartilage, teeth, and a lower jaw, more or less de- 

 formed, ought to be considered as probable cases of 

 ovarian impregnation with an incompletely developed 

 fetus, and in young girls as examples of the intra- 

 uterine formation of a fetus within a fetus;" that 

 "only in this way can be explained the lipomatous 

 and sarcomatous congenital masses contained in cysts, 

 with the teeth and fragments of bone simulating an 

 incomplete jaw, which have been observed on the 

 human orbit (Lobstein and Travers), on the palate 

 (Otto), on the tongue (Stansky), on the side of the 

 jaw, in the cheek, and on the neck, but which Schultze 

 and Panum consider as the simple proliferation of em- 

 bryonic plasmatic cells ; " that " some dental cysts are 

 true dermoid cysts, containing hair and teeth," &c., 

 and closes his paper with the following common-sense 

 suggestion : 



" Perhaps direct researches, which have not yet been 

 made, carried out in favorable circumstances, will bet- 

 ter serve in deciding their real nature than all the 

 more or less brilliant academical reasoning." 



John Gramgee, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology 

 in the Edinburgh Veterinary College, in the course of 

 a series of articles on various subjects in " The Veter- 

 inarian " for 1856, thus comments on a case of dentig- 

 erous cyst, the history of which was originally written 



