Volume 8

Medical facts and observations.

Date:
MDCCXCI-MDCCC [1791-1800]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical facts and observations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    been direded, to enable her better to fupport the increafing difeharge from the ulcer. After death, the parents confented to have the body infpefted; and permitted me to take the monftrofity for a preparation. As it had been thought juftifiable to attempt the extirpation of it, had the child lived to a proper age, I was defirous to know how far it would have been pra6ticable; and, if the child could have furvived the operation, what chance there would have been for her recovery. Accordingly, I formed a flap as 1 had intended had the operation been performed during life, and then diflefted down to difeover the prin- cipal attachment between the two bodies. It then appeared that the union con|ifted merely of a ligamentous fubflance, which conne6ted the monftrofity to the point of the os coccygis of the child, and might have been readily divided; but this could not be known till after death, nor the number nor fize of the con- ne6ting blood-veflels. Only one artery was difeovered, about the fize of a crow-quill; and one nerve of nearly equal diameter. Had the child lived to undergo the operation, it is probable, therefore, that ihe would have recovered. Nothing