30 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1791. 



woman came to London, and exhibited herself as a show for money; and it is 

 highly probable, that so rare an occurrence would have sufficiently excited the 

 public attention to have made it answer her expectations in point of emolument, 

 had not the circumstance been made known to her neighbours in the country, 

 who were much dissatisfied with the measure, and by their importunity obliged 

 her husband to take her into the country. 



That the cases which have been related may not be considered as peculiar in- 

 stances from which no conclusions can be drawn, it may not be amiss to take notice 

 of some of the ir.ost remarkable histories of this kind, mentioned by authors, and 

 see how far they agree with those above stated, in the general characters that are 

 sufficiently obvious to strike a common observer; for the vague and indefinite 

 terms in which authors express themselves on this subject show plainly, that they 

 did not unders^tand the nature of the disease, and their accounts of it are not 

 very satisfactory to their readers. 



In the Ephemerides Academiee Naturae Curiosorum there are 1 cases of horns 

 growing from the human body™ One of these instances was a German woman, 

 who had several swellings, or ganglions, on different parts of her head, from 

 "one of which a horn grew. The other was a nobleman, who had a small tumor, 

 about the size of a nut, growing on the parts covering the 1 last or lowermost 

 vertebrpe of the back. It continued for 10 years, without undergoing any appa- 

 rent change; but afterwards enlarged in size, and a horny excrescence grew out 

 from it. 



In the History of the Royal Society of Medicine, there is an account of a 

 woman, 97 years old, who had several tumors on her head, which had been 14 

 years in growing to the state they were in at that time; she had also a horn which 

 had originated from a similar tumor. The horn was very moveable, being at- 

 tached to the scalp, without any adhesion to the scull. It was sawn off, but 

 grew again, and though the operation was repeated several times, the horn always 

 returned. 



Bartholine, in his Epistles, takes notice of a woman who had a tumor under 

 the scal[), covering the temporal muscle. This gradually enlarged, and a horn 

 grew from it, which had become 12 inches long in the year l(J4(), the time he 

 saw it. He gives a representation of it, which bears a very accurate resemblance 

 to that above-mentioned, seen by Mr. H. in Nov. I?90. No tumor or swelling 

 is expressed in the figure; but tlie horn is coming directly out from the surface 

 of the skin. 



In the Natural History of Cheshire, a woman is mentioned to have lived in 

 the year IO68, who had a tumor or wen on her head for 32 years, which after- 

 wards enlarged, and 2 horns grew out of it; she was then Tl years old. There 

 is a horny excrescence in the Biilish Museum, which is 1 1 inches long, and 'i^- 



