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X. — Skiagraphic Researches in Teratology. By Harry Rainy, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., 

 and J. W. Ballantyne, M.D., F.R.C.P.E. (With Fifteen Plates.) 



(Read February 15, 1915. MS. received November 5, 1915. Issued separately December 31, 1915.) 



The study of human teratology has always been rendered difficult by the relative 

 scantiness of available material ; consequently it is of great importance that such 

 cases as can be obtained should be fully utilised and recorded. It has seemed to us 

 that in this respect the employment of X-rays is likely to prove of service, for the 

 abnormalities of the skeletal structures can then be readily and fully studied without 

 interfering with the integrity of the specimen or its utility in the investigation of 

 other elements. We therefore desire to place on record the skiagraphic findings 

 of several series of developmental anomalies in the human subject, in order that 

 they may be available for future workers. 



Some of the specimens have been already described' from the anatomical stand- 

 point, without X-ray photographs, and references are given in such cases ; others 

 are presented in this communication for the first time, and we desire to express our 

 indebtedness to those who have placed the material in our hands, as well as to the 

 Trustees of the Moray Fund, who have aided us in meeting the expense of producing 

 the skiagrams. We also wish to acknowledge our obligations to Dr Berry Hart 

 for many valuable suggestions. 



One of us * has elsewhere pointed out that there are three main subdivisions of 

 antenatal pathology, corresponding to the three main subdivisions of antenatal life. 

 Of these subdivisions of the subject, the first is foetal pathology, characterised in 

 great measure by the same diseases as those of the child and adult. The second is 

 embryonic pathology, or, as it is more commonly called, teratology, which deals 

 with the monstrosities of the embryo, for at this stage morbid agencies produce not 

 diseases but malformations and monstrosities. These are naturally carried forward 

 when the embryo becomes a foetus, and so the condition, though a product of early 

 intrauterine pathology, is continued into the later stages of life. The third, and in 

 some respects the most interesting, part of antenatal pathology is concerned with the 

 action of morbid causes on the organism in the early germinal period. It is at this 

 period that many of the teratological formations that are usually referred to em- 

 bryonic pathology most probably arise, and if we tentatively accept the suggestion that 

 " unit characters " are fixed by the fate of their " determinants " in the germinal stage 

 of development (and especially at the moment when the polar bodies are expelled), 

 we may obtain a scheme of classification of certain well-defined monstrosities 



* J. W. B., Glasgow Med. Joum., xlix, 241, 1898. 

 TRANS. ROY. SOC. ED IN., VOL. LI, PART II (NO. 10). 64 



