466 VROV. B. C. A. WINBLE ON TERATOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 



four cases. In one of these, the leg was amputated between the 

 knee and the ankle, the severed portion being found in the mem- 

 branes. Other bands had nearly amputated some of the fingers. 

 According to Hennig *, the substance which forms the bands may 

 be formed sometimes from the skin of the embryo, sometimes from 

 the membranes, and sometimes from both. The skin alone was, 

 in his opinion, the cause in most of the recorded examples of 

 spontaneous amputation. Before considering what proportion 

 of the cases of defective limbs and digits may be due to this 

 cause, it will be necessary to consider two special classes of cases. 

 (1) Cases of perodactyly with absence of a forearm-bone and 

 carpal bone. I have described f an instance where radius, sca- 

 phoid, trapezium, and thumb were all absent on both sides. It 

 is obvious that cases such as this could not be produced by 

 amniotic causes, but are due to absence of formative material and 

 blastogenic in their nature. (2) There is a curious group of 

 cases where on the end of the stump are to be found fingers 

 generally in an imperfect state of development. Or there may 

 be a want of the intermediate parts in the extremities so tliat 

 the hand is attached immediately to the shoulder and the foot to 

 the hip, as in the remarkable case of Marco Catonze, figured by 

 YrolikJ and Forster §. Simpson [j, in 1841, noticed what he 

 called a tendency to rudimentary reproduction of the amputated 

 members ou the face of the stump. This he compared with the 

 cases of reproduction of limbs in lower animals. Sturgelf 

 describes an interesting case of a man aged 22, in whom the 

 radius and ulna ou the left side ended in a conical stump 3 in. 

 below the elbow-joint. On the flexor aspect of the stump, and 

 situated transversely across it, were five little projections, the 

 one nearest to the radial side being the largest and the re- 

 mainder gradually decreasing to that on the ulnar border ; 

 the largest and the adjoining one had well-marked nails. 

 The author's remarks upon the subject will be more appositely 

 quoted somewhat later. The point is a very interesting one and 

 by no means clear, but it may be doubted whether there is really 

 any truth in the restoration theory, and whether the facts are not 

 much better explained by some such hypothesis as that offered 



* " Ueb. d. Nebenbander u. Schafhautstrange in der Eihohle d. Mensch.," 

 Vircbow's Arcb. Bd. xix. S. 200. t Anat. Anzeiger, Jabrg.3. S. 63. 



X Art. "Teratology," Todd's Cycl. of Anat. & Phys. figs. 624, 625. 



§ Op. cit. Taf. xi. figs. 6 & 7. || Selected Obstetric Works, p. 129, 



t Trans. Path. Soc. Tol. xxxi. p. 208, 



