ANIDIAN MONSTERS. 
323 
well- developed calf and its membranes, a slight contraction 
caused the exit of a globular sac perfectly closed, resembling 
a fetus in the early stages of development, still invested 
within its membranes. Having opened the sac a moderate 
quantity of water escaped with the above-described monster. 
In addition to an incomplete head, it presents a small portion 
of a membranous canal, comparable to a portion of intestine, 
on the mesentery of which are inserted the umbilical 
vessels. 5 ’ 
Ruysch, in his c Thesaurus Anatomicus, 5 was the first to 
describe an anidium , and from that time, fifty years elapsed 
before Dr. Bland, in his tf Midwifery Reports, 5 published in the 
‘ Philosophical Transactions’ for 1781, page 363, in giving a 
table of the proportion of male to female children, of the 
number of twins, and of the children that were deficient or 
monstrous, and of those that were dead born, stated that a 
woman was delivered of twins, the one well-formed, the 
other imperfect, which he describes as follow s : 
“ Of this singular production, to which I have not ven- 
tured to give a name, the following is the history and 
description : — The woman who produced it w as about twenty 
years of age ; this was her first pregnancy. She was, after 
a labour, delivered of a female foetus, and its placenta, in 
w hich nothing uncommon was observed, and although the 
uterus remained of an unusual size, yet the pains not reconv 
mencing, there was no suspicion entertained but that its 
bulk was occasioned by coagulated blood. On the third 
day the pains became violent, and this monster was born. 
Its shape was spherical, but somewhat flattened. It mea- 
sured eight inches,* and weighed about eighteen ounces. 
It received its nourishment by an umbilical cord, to which 
w r as attached a portion of membranes, and although no 
placenta was found, it is probable it had a small one, and 
that it w 7 as enclosed in its own involucrum. It was com- 
pletely covered with a cuticula, and a little above the part 
where the navel-string terminated, there was a hairy scalp 
covering a bony prominence, somewhat resembling the arch of 
the cranium. On dissection, it was found to be plentifully 
supplied with blood-vessels, proceeding from the navel-string 
and branching through every part of it. It had a small 
brain and medulla spinalis continued under a bony theca, 
with nerves passing from thence through the foramina of the 
* In the British Museum copy of the ‘Philosophical Transactions/ the 
number five has been written in the margin, and the number eight of the 
text erased. 
