On the origin of double monstrosity / by Bertram C.A. Windle.

  • Windle, Bertram C. A. (Bertram Coghill Alan), 1858-1929.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the origin of double monstrosity / by Bertram C.A. Windle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    months, however, one has been placed on record which com- pletely bears out Professor Cleland’s views. In the American Journal of Obstetrics^ Dr Wells gives an account of a female double monster, whose case has attracted some attention in the medical journals. She possesses “a well- formed single body, with normal upper extremities, which below the waist broadens out, having two umbilici, and bifurcating at the pelvis, where there are four lower limbs, all of which spring from the same horizontal and vertical plane. The spinal column divides at the third lumbar vertebra, the two pelves being fused by the junction of their respective ilia. There are two pelvic arches suppljing the four limbs, two pubes, two montes Veneris, two perfect sets of external and internal female generative organs, two bladders, two ani, and two lower intestines. The outer limbs on which the woman walks are well developed, though the foot of the right is in a condition of equino-varus. The inner limbs are smaller, atrophied from disuse, and below the knee very rudimentary.” Here, then, as in the cases of the birds, the true pairs are not the functional and the non-functional limbs, but a functional with a non-functional on either side. Cases such as these, viewed in the light which Professor Cleland has thrown upon them, appear to me to be unexplain- able upon any other hjq)othesis than that of fission. Assuming that this is the true explanation, the object of this paper is to inquire whether recent biological studies give any assistance in the search for the cause of this abnormal division. At the outset, it may be said that the known facts appear to point to the conclusion that fission, at least in cases of complete or nearly complete duplicity, must take place at an extremely early period, if not at the very earliest. Lists of observed double forms, such as have been given by Ilauber,^ Reichert,^ and Gerlach,'* include several which have been met with at very early stages of development, and to these may be added the most recent observation by Burckhardt,® of two primitive streaks, ^ Vol. xxi. p. 1265. * Virchow’s Archiv, Bd. Ixxi. s. 183. ® Arch, fur Anat. u. Phys., 1864, s. 744. * Die Enlstehungsweise der Doppelviissbildungen, Stuttgart, 1882. ' Arch.f. AncU. u. Entwick., s. 431, 1888.