Contributions to teratology : undescribed malformation of the lower lip occurring in four members of one family / by J. Jardine Murray.

  • Murray, John Jardine.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to teratology : undescribed malformation of the lower lip occurring in four members of one family / by J. Jardine Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    The seventh child, as already mentioned, was born with the middle and ring finger of each hand closely united by skin. The eldest child, aged seventeen, is quite womanly in appearance. She is in every respect well-formed, save that in the lower lip there are present two pouches or sacculi, which constitute the interesting congenital peculiarity now to be described. The under lip is full and fleshy. About a quarter of an inch from the external edge of the pink mucous membrane of the prolabium are two crescentic openings, exactly similar in appearance and symmetrical in position, one placed on either side of the mesial line. The horns of the crescent are directed forwards, and a little outwards. A probe inserted into one of these openings passes downwards on the inner side of the lip under a considerable thickness of mucous membrane, to the depth of half-an-inch. Into each pouch a split pea might readily be introduced. The pouches do not communicate with each other; they secrete glairy mucus, and their presence does not occasion any incon- venience. Sacculi in every respect precisely similar to these are present in the under-lips of the father of this family, and of his third and eighth children, all of whom were, however, born with the additional malformation of hare-lip. By .referring to the portraits of the eighth child (Bigs. 1 and 2), the indications of the crescentic mouths of the sacculi may be seen on the prolabium of the lower lip. The two following woodcuts are carefully made from photographs of the father and his third daughter. Fig. 4.—The lower portion of the face of the Father, aged forty- one. He was born with double harelip, and at the age of thirteen was operated on by the late Mr. Liston. The prominence of the under-lip is due to the scantiness of the upper lip, which is drawn tightly over the gap caused by the removal of the intermaxillary bone. The crescentic openings of the sacculi on the prolabium of the under-lip are faithfully represented.