Wolff's unpublished notes and drawings on teratology 

 interested the academicians V. Tilezius and P. A. Zagorskii 

 (38) . The first informed the conference of the Academy about 

 the presence in the archive of Wolff's handwritten manuscript, 

 and in 1814 the latter requested permission to "take it from 

 the archive to review the notes and drawings remaining after 

 the death of Professor Wolff." Permission was obtained, and 

 Zagorskii got involved in studying the archival materials 

 as well as the human monsters or anomalies in the anatomical 

 museums of the Academy of Science and the Medico-Surgery 

 Academy. The result of these investigations was a series of 

 work about monsters, anatomical anomalies and variations, 

 of which the first, of 1805, concerns the time of discovery, 

 and carries the name "Anatomical Report, containing descrip- 

 tions and drawings of the rare monstrous human abortions J"" 



This article is illustrated by the description of the 

 monstrous human fetus which was devoid of head and upper 

 extremities. There was extreme interest in P. A. Zagorskii 's 

 report, "Formation of different human monsters, "^ in which 

 he gives a specific teratological classification dividing the 

 monsters into the following groups: 1) Changes in the body or 

 its relevant parts in type, color, size and location; 

 2) Imperfection in the structure or deficiencies; 3) Absence 

 of parts; 4) Complicated monsters, i.e. composed or appear 

 to be composed of two accreted bodies. Zagorskii stopped at 

 the essential sources of monsters, which develop "by accidents 

 and also by errors of nature." He claimed that the reasons 

 for development of monsters have a mechanical basis and that 

 monstrosity does not depend "on forces of imagination and 

 indignation of the soul, to which many people relate the 

 errors." C38a) 



At the turn of the nineteenth century, philosophical 

 and scientific thought in Russia after Lomonosov again rose 



13. Zagorskii, "Commentatio anatomica abortus huraani monstrosi 

 rarissimi descriptionem ac delineationem sistens," NOVA 

 ACTA ACAD. SCIENT. PETROPOLITANAE , v. xv (1805), 

 pp. 473 - 482. 



14. SPECULATIVE INVESTIGATIONS OF THE IMP. 

 ST.. PETERSBURG ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, v. ill, 

 1812, pp. 265 - 277. 



134 



