MONSTER. 
from it, which had become 12 inches long in the year 
2646, when he firft faw it. There is a horny excrefcence 
in the Britilh Mufeum, 11 inches long, and 2-£ in cir¬ 
cumference at the bafe, or thickeft part, produced from 
a wen on the head; it began in the forty-eighth year of 
the woman’s age, and was four years in reaching the 
above-mentioned fize. See Mr. Home’s paper in the Phil. 
Tranf. quoted above. 
M. de Maupertuis mentions, that there is at Berlin a 
family who have had fix fingers on each hand for feveral 
generations. M. de Riville faw an in fiance of this at 
Malta, of which he has given a defcription. M. Renou, 
furgeon at Pommeraye in Anjou, has publifhed an ac¬ 
count of fome families with fix fingers, which are to be 
found in feveral parilhes of the Lower Anjou, and which 
have exifted there from time immemorial. This defor¬ 
mity is perpetuated in thefe families, even when they in¬ 
termarry with perfons who are free from it. Whether the 
propagation of thefe fupernumerary organs, which are 
not only ufelefs but inconvenient tfnd even difagreeable, 
be owing to the father or mother, their children of both 
fexes.are fubjedf to it indiferiminately. A father or mo¬ 
ther with fix fingers frequently have a part, and fome- 
times the whole, of their children, free from this defor¬ 
mity; but it again makes its appearance, and in a very 
great degree, in the third generation. From this it ap- 
ears, that this fault in the conformation is hereditary. 
1 . Reaumur has likewife publifhed the hiftory of a family 
in the ifland of Malta, the children of which are born 
with fix fingers and fix toes. In the Journal de Phyfique 
for June 1788, we have an account of a man with feven 
fingers on each hand, by baron Dietrich. 
This fingular ftrufture exifts in the family of Zerah 
Colburn, the remarkable American calculating boy, who 
was exhibited two winters ago in London. (See the article 
London, vol. xiii. p. 314.) There are five fingers upon 
each hand, and fix toes on each foot. The fupernume¬ 
rary finger is upon the outfide of the little finger of each 
hand, and there is a metacarpal bone with all the necef- 
fary appendages to it: the finger is regularly formed. 
The fame remark applies to the feet. This peculiarity 
has been propagated in the family for at leaft four gene¬ 
rations. A woman of the name of Kendall had it; the 
married Mr. Green, who was naturally formed ; they had 
eleven children, all of them with five fingers and fix toes. 
One of the daughters of this marriage married David Col¬ 
burn, who was naturally formed ; they had four children, 
three with five fingers and fix toes on each hand and foot, 
one with one hand and foot naturally formed, the others 
with the monftrofity. Abiah Colburn, a fon by this mar¬ 
riage, having the peculiarity, married a woman naturally 
formed ; they have eight children, three naturally formed, 
and five with the peculiarity; one of thefe five is the cal¬ 
culating boy. Phil. Tranf. 1814. 
There is at this time in London a beggar-boy, or match- 
boy, with fix fingers on each hand. He appears about fix 
years of age; and was feen by the compiler of this article 
at Shoreditch in April of the prefentyear, 1817. 
Among the monftrous produ&ions of the animal king¬ 
dom, we may rank thole individuals which ought only to 
poffefs one lex, but in which we obferve the union or the 
appearance of two. See the article Anatomy, vol. i. p.623. 
Several monftrous productions are to be feen in the ca¬ 
binet at Chantilly in France. 1. Two calves joined to¬ 
gether in the body, with each a feparate head and neck, 
and four legs in the whole. 2. Two calves united only 
by the pelvis, with only one anus and one tail: the whole 
fupported by fix legs, four before and two behind. 3. A 
lamb with lix legs, four of which are behind. 4. The 
Ikeleton of a ram, which has likewife fix legs. 5. An her¬ 
maphrodite deer. 6. The head of a foal, which has only 
one eye in the middle of the forehead. 7. Some leverets 
with fix and eight legs. 8. A puppy, the lips of which 
are divided fourfold. 9. Some feetufes of a hog which 
have a kind of tube xipon their forehead one or two 
Vol. XV. No. 1077. 
709 
inches long; and another, the hinder part of which is 
double in every thing. 10. Two double human foetufes 
joined by the belly, with four arms and three legs. u. 
A young chicken with two bodies and one head. 12. A 
pigeon and a duck, each with two bills. 13. A duck with 
two heads. 14. A pigeon with four feet. 15. A capon 
with three feet; the third being fixed to the anus. 16. 
Two heads of a calf joined together, each of them with 
two ears : thefe two heads were both fixed to one neck. 
17. In the menagerie, at the lame place, there was for¬ 
merly to be feen a cow with five feet, the fifth of which was 
connedted with the dug. 18. A rabbit without ears. 19. 
Two cats, each with two heads. 20. Two leverets newly 
brought forth, well-fhaped in the body and legs, but con¬ 
nected together by one head. 21. Several eggs, in the figure 
of which there occur fome monltrous appearances and ex¬ 
traordinary deformities, fufficient to fhow that they are 
contrary to the eftablifhed form of nature. 
There are alfo monftrous productions in the vegetable 
world ; fuch, e. gr. are what fome botanifts call mules. 
Florifts alfo give the denomination monfters, or monftrous 
flowers, to thofe flowers which are not only double, but 
double podded; or when, inftead of one flower, there are 
two or three rifling one above another from a Angle ftalk, 
as in Fritillaria, or crown imperial. 
Monfters are indeed more common and more extraor¬ 
dinary in the vegetable than in the animal kingdom, be- 
caufe the different juices are more eafily deranged and 
confounded together. Leaves are often feen, from the 
internal parts of which other leaves fpring forth ; and it 
is not uncommon to fee flowers of the ranunculus from 
the middle of which ifl'ues a ftalk bearing another flower. 
M. Bonnet informs us, that in certain warm and rainy 
years he has frequently met with monfters of this kind in 
rofe-trees. This obferver faw a rofe, from the centre of 
which iflued a fquare ftalk of a whitifh colour, tender, and 
without prickles, which at its top bore two flower-buds 
oppofite to each other, and totally deftitute of a calyx ; a 
little above the buds iflued a petal of a very irregular ihape. 
Upon the prickly ftalk which fupported the rofe, a leaf 
was obferved which had the Ihape of a trefoil, together 
with a broad flat pedicle. In the Memoirs of the Aca¬ 
demy of Sciences for 1707, p. 448, mention is made of a 
rofe, from the centre of the leaves of which iflued a rofe- 
brancli two or three inches long, and furniftied with leaves. 
See the fame Memoirs for 1749, P- 44 - and for 1724, p. 20. 
In the Memoirs for 1775, a vel T Angular inftance is men¬ 
tioned of a monftrofity-obferved by M. Duhamel, in an 
apple-tree ingrafted with clay. At the place of the in- 
fertion, there appeared a bud which produced a ftalk and 
fome leaves ; the ftalk and the pedicle of the leaves were 
of a pulpy fubftance, and had the moft perfedt refemblance, 
both in tafte and fmell, to the pulp of a green-apple. M. 
Bonnet, in his Recherches fur VvJage des feuilles, men¬ 
tions likewife fome monftrous productions which have 
been found in fruits with kernels, analogous in their na¬ 
ture to thofe which occur in the flowers of the ranunculus 
and of the rofe-tree. He faw a pear, from the eye of 
which iflued a tuft of thirteen or fourteen leaves, very 
well fhaped, and many of them of the natural fize ; another 
pear which gave rife to a ligneous and knotty ftalk, on 
which grew another pear fomewhat larger than the firft. 
A Lilium album was obferved fome years ago at Breflaw, 
which bore on its top a bundle of flowers, coniifting of 
102 lilies all of the common ftiape. M. Reynier has men¬ 
tioned fome individuals monftrous with refpedt to the 
flower, in the Journal de Phyfique for Nov. 1785. He 
likewife mentions a monftrous tulip, juniper-berries with 
horns, a balfamine with three fpurs, See. 
Caujes of Monjlrojity. —Phyficians for a long time be¬ 
lieved, and mankind in general are Hill firmly convinced, 
that the mind of the mother exerts a very potent influence 
on the formation of the child ; and that her imagination, 
or fome peculiar mental ftate, is capable of producing even 
very fignal deviations from the accuftomed formation, 
8 & aftejr 
