498 PEOr. B. C. A. WINDLE OK TBEATOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 



Section VI. — CoisrcLusioiir. 



I have at various points in this paper had to allude to the 

 unfortunate gaps in our teratological knowledge, which make 

 the drawing of indisputable conclusions so yery hazardous. I 

 shall therefore content myself with briefly indicating those points 

 which have chiefly struck me in working at the subject. Even if 

 the deductions be inaccurate, the facts and words of others collected 

 in this paper may render it of some service to others working at 

 the same subject, and probably especially so to those who are 

 not members of the medical profession, and who are therefore 

 perhaps less conversant with its literature than those who, like 

 myself, are in the constant habit of referring to it. I will now 

 mention the points to which I have above alluded. 



(1) It is an interesting point that those malformations whose 

 blastogenic nature is least in doubt are, speaking generally, those 

 also whose hereditary nature is most distinct. I would refer, as 

 an example, to polydactyly. 



(2) Again, it is interesting that those malformations which 

 are undoubtedly somatogenic are, so far as I know, non-hereditary. 

 I allude to the abnormalities described in Section II. Part 3, 

 but the remark just made must be taken with the limitation that 

 so many of these forms are still-born or survive but a brief 

 period. It might be thought that a further limitation should be 

 made on account of the difficulty that gravely deformed persons 

 might find in getting married ; but this is, I think, an unnecessary 

 limitation. The study of teratological literature almost seems to 

 teach one that any person of either sex can get married if they 

 desire it. Let me give an example from both sexes. Butcher * 

 has figured a woman and her child both affected with the most 

 aggravated form of double hare-lip and cleft-palate, than which 

 scarcely anything can lend a more horrible appearance to the face. 

 Butcher operated upon both at the same time and remedied the 

 defects to a large extent. On the other side, I knew of a man 

 quite destitute of both upper and lower extremities, who was not 

 only married but the progenitor of a well-formed and handsome 

 progeny. I do not know the cause of the defect in his case. 



(3) It must be admitted that besides the cases w^hich have been 

 alluded to in the above two sections, there remain still a number 

 of others as to which no definite conclusion can be, at present, 



* Dubl. Journ. of Med. Sci, Ixiii. 426. 



