t 
with supernumerary Fingers and Toes. 97 
always be desirable, that more reasonable inductions may be 
established concerning the laws which direct this interesting 
part of creation : and it might be attended with the most im- 
portant consequences, if discovery could be made of the rela- 
tive influence of the male and female sex in the propagation 
of peculiarities, and the course and extent of hereditary cha- 
racter could be ascertained, both as it affects the human race 
in their moral and physical capacities, and as it governs the 
creatures which are subdued for civilized uses. Nor is it alto- 
gether vain to expect, that more profound views, and more 
applicable facts await the researches of men, who, have as yet 
only begun to explore this branch of natural history, by sub- 
jecting it to physical rules. 
Though the causes which govern the production of organic 
monstrosities, or which direct the hereditary continuance of 
them, may for ever remain unknown, it still seems desirable 
to ascertain the variety of those deviations, and to mark the 
course they take, where they branch out anew, and where 
they terminate. There is doubtless a general system in even 
the errors of nature, as is abundantly evinced by the regular 
series of monstrosity exhibited both in animals and vege- 
tables. 
It has happened in my professional capacity, that I have had 
to extirpate a supernumerary thumb from each of the hands 
of two girls, who were both ideots, though the families to 
whom they belonged were unknown to each other. I have 
seen many instances of supernumerary thumbs and supernu- 
merary fingers in persons to whom the singularity was not 
hereditary, and I have read of many others ; but whether of my 
own experience, or of authentic record, the redundancy has 
MDCCCXIV. O 
