492 PEOF. B. C. A. WINDLE ON TERATOLOaiCAL EYIDENCE 



(5) Strieker * gives the case of a family where, amongst hair 

 otherwise perfectly black, a white lock existed. This abnor- 

 mality ran five generations, the first individual known to possess it 

 having lived in 1720, and the case having been described in 1877. 

 If Beigel's view be correct, this may also have been due to a ner- 

 vous defect. It is, indeed, difficult to know how else to account 

 for it. 



(6) Mr. Lloyd Owen t has described carefully a case where 

 congenital nystagmus was transmitted through four generations. 

 This condition appears to be due to some congenital defect of the 

 nerve-centres. 



(7) Bland Sutton % gives the following case. — " A woman in the 

 fifth month of gestation fell downstairs on her abdomen. At the 

 eighth month she was delivered of a child, the upper part of the 

 body presenting the proportions of a foetus of corresponding date, 

 but all parts below the navel agreed with those of an embryo of 

 the fifth month of intra-uterine life. Dissection showed that the 

 spinal column ended at the first lumbar vertebra, the remaining 

 lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal elements being absent. The skin 

 of the legs was exceedingly thin, and, on reflecting it, tlie bones 

 were found to be thin and to present the characters of those of 

 an embryo of the fifth mouth. All the other tissues of the legs, 

 muscles, nerves, ligaments, &c., were represented by adipose 

 tissue. In this instance it is probable that when the mother 

 fell, she fractured the spine of the foetus ; the result was to cut 

 off nervous influences from the legs, which inconsequence retro- 

 graded into fat." He refers to other examples of this fatty 

 degeneration subsequent to loss of nerve-influence §, and says tliat 

 " there seems to be, as Otto || was the first to demonstrate, some 

 intimate relation between absence of nerves and fatty degenera- 

 tion ; and he points out that parasitic foetuses, which, as a rule, 

 are devoid of nerves, always contain a very large quantity of fat 

 in lieu of more important tissue-muscles and the like." 



(8) Furst % narrates a case where chronic hydrocephalus was. 

 accompanied by cessation of growth. 



* " Noch eine Familie von Haarmenschen," Virch. Arch. Ixxiii. 622. 

 t Ophthal. EeY. vol. i. p. 239. 



I Introduction to General Pathology,' p. 85. 

 § Med.-Chir. Soc. Trans. Ixviii. p. 293. 



II Compendium of Human and Comp. Path. Anat. (South'stransl., 1831). 

 ■[ Virch. Arch. xcvi. 357. 



