328 Fd 



diate observation, as shewn in the annexed 

 fgure, 158. 



FCETUS. 



Fig. 158. 



J am very much disposed to believe that 

 Morgagni witnessed a fact of this kind; at 

 least his description of the appearance in a 

 monstrous fetus between the fifth and sixth 

 month, greatly resembles it, of which he says, 

 " All the limbs were in a very bad state, the 

 upper limbs from the elbows downwards ; 

 for to the arms, which were very short and 

 distorted, distorted hands were likewise added. 

 And the inferior limbs terminated, likewise, in 

 distorted feet, but the left leg was either broken 

 from the funiculus umbilicalis having been ap- 

 plied round it, or was more distorted than 

 the other parts:"* and he afterwards, with 

 great reason, conjectures that the binding of 

 the cord round the leg may have been the 

 cause of the child's death, by interrupting 

 the circulation through it. It is a very ex- 

 traordinary fact, that in every one of these 

 cases, as well as in several others, the injury 

 was sustained by the left extremity.^ 



In the course of the last year Dr. Simpson 

 of Edinburgh published an excellent paper on 

 this subject;]; into which he has collected a 

 vast quantity of curious information and many 

 most important cases from authors, to which 



* Epistle xlviii. art. 53, vol. ii. p. 758, of 

 Alexander's translation. 



t For other instances of impressions made on 

 the fcetal limbs, &c. see Van de Laar, Obs. Obstet. 

 Mecl. p. 41, and tab. 11 ; Meckel, Patholog. Anat. 

 Bd. ii. s. 137; Sandifort, Thesaurus, torn. iii. 

 p. 235, tab. 11, fig. 5. 



| See Dublin Medical Journal for November. 

 1836, vol. x. p. 220. 



he has added not a few from his own obser- 

 vation, together with several highly apposite 

 remarks ; and I am happy to find that he also 

 assents to, and, indeed, strongly confirms my 

 view both as to the agent which produces the 

 change and its consisting of organized lymph, 

 such as is usually elaborated under the influence 

 of inflammatory action, from which it is well 

 known that several varieties of fetal deformities 

 arise;* and it is a matter of every day ob- 

 servation how completely lymph so effused 

 will be converted into distinct firm threads, 

 uniting opposite serous surfaces, especially 

 those which move freely on each other, as the 

 pleurae and the peritoneal coverings of the ab- 

 dominal viscera.f 



From the cases referred to by Dr. Simpson, 

 I shall now notice three which appear more 

 particularly illustrative of the true nature of 

 this remarkable lesion, and confirmatory of my 

 original account of it. 



Zagorsky has described J a malformed fetus 

 of the fifth month, which, in addition to several 

 other deformities, was deficient of the right 

 leg, the thigh ending in a rounded and cicatrized 

 stump, in the centre of which was a small 

 projecting point: from this was prolonged a 

 slender thread-like membrane, strong in pro- 

 portion to its size, that ran directly across to 

 the left leg, which it encircled, a little above 

 the ankle, like a tightened ligature, see^g. 159, 

 and formed in it a depression of considerable 

 depth, while the portion of the extremity 

 below the ligature was, as well as the appended 

 foot, rather tumefied. From about the middle 

 of the transverse thread-like membrane a small 

 body of an oblong form was suspended, which, 

 on examination, proved to be the right foot 

 perfectly formed, as its general outline and 

 five toes demonstrated, but not larger in size 

 than the foot of a fetus of the tenth or twelfth 

 week. 



Beclard mentions the case of a very de- 

 formed hydrocephalic fetus, whose left leg was 

 divided by a transverse depression that pene- 

 trated as deep as the bones, and resembled that 

 which would have been produced by a tight 

 ligature. The two opposite surfaces of this 

 indentation were both cicatrized, and almost 

 touching one another. " It is evident," says 

 Beclard, " that if this fetus had remained in 

 utero for some time longer, it would have been 

 born with an amputated and cicatrized leg, the 

 remains of which might have been found in the 

 liquor amnii." 



* See Geoffrey St. Hilaire's investigations in his 

 work on " Monstruosites Humaines;" Meckel's 

 Handbuch der Pathologischen Anatomic, Bd. ii. 

 s. 138; and a paper on the diseases of the placenta, 

 by Dr. Simpson, in the Edin. Med. and Surg. 

 Journ. vol. xlv. p. 305 et seq. 



t Dr. Hildebrand of Berlin has also noticed my 

 cases with some remarks : see Grafe, und Walthers 

 Journal der Chirurgie, Bd. 18, 11, p. 325 : 1832. 

 The latest author on the subject is Graetzer, die 

 Krankheiten des foetus, Breslau, 1837, p. 69. 



\ Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences 

 of St. Petersburgh for 1834, sixth scries, vol. iii. 

 p. 3, 7. 



Bulletins de la Faculte, &c. for 1817, torn. v. 

 p. 213. 



