404 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO J 707. 



XF. History of a Foetus born with a very imperfect Brain ; to which is subjoined 



a Supplement to the Essay on the Use of Ganglions, published in Philos. Trans. 



for 1764.* By James Johnstone, M. D. p. 118. 



October 17, 1765, a monstrous birth was brought by a midwife. It was a 

 female child, come to its full time, in which the whole skull, excepting its basis, 

 was wanting : this was covered with something which had the appearance of red 

 flesh. He found it to consist of different membranes ; and in a small depression, 

 in a back part of the basis of the skull, lay the brain, such as it was, not exceed- 

 ing the size of the kernel of a filbert nut, flaccid and membranous. He could 

 not have positively pronounced it brain, had he not traced its continuation into 

 spinal marrow, down the channel of the vertebrae. The eyes were perfect and 

 sound. The optic nerve of one eye he examined, though not large enough, yet 

 in thickness was almost equal to one-third of the spinal marrow, which was too 

 small likewise. 



On opening the breast and abdomen, all the organs there seemed in structure 

 perfect, properly situated, and full grown. The heart in particular was plump 

 and strong. This infant had not breathed, its lungs, which were perfect, sunk 

 in water : yet the mother and midwife felt it active and strong just before deli- 

 very. This child had tongue, nostrils, eyes, and ears, and every other part, ex- 

 cepting the brain, perfect and plump, as in the healthiest infants come to their 

 full time. 



Many births similar to this, in most circumstances, are recorded in the Trans- 

 actions of the R. s. No. 99, 226, 228, 242. First, such of them as were bom 

 alive, died soon after birth, though lively and strong in the womb, and perfect 

 in all parts, the brain and skull excepted. 2. In that of which an account is 

 given by Dr. Preston (Philos. Trans. No. 226), the celebrated anatomist Mons. 

 du Verney traced the 8th and gth pairs, the medulla spinalis, and the intercostals. 

 The child was well proportioned, the cranium, brain, and cerebellum were want- 

 ing ; instead there remained only a substance, like congealed blood, covered with 

 a membrane. 3. In a case related, and largely commented on, by the celebrated 

 Wepfer, which differs in many respects from other children said to be without 

 brains ; the child was well-proportioned, its head of the usual size, but its brain 

 had degenerated into vesicles, or hydatides, each of which had its blood vessel 

 (might one from thence infer the natural state of the cortical substance of the 

 brain to be cellular ?) and the optic and auditory nerves took their rise from 3 

 portions of medullary substance lying on the sphaenoid bone near the sella equina. 

 4. These singular existences aflbrd inferences, and show that the irritability of 

 the heart is capable of being sustained by very low degrees of the nervous |»ower> 



* Page 122 of this abridged yoivimf. 



