MINOR TERATA. 2 page

Albinism is found in the lower animals, and is exemplified ordinarily

by rats, mice, crows, robins, etc. In the Zoologic Garden at Baltimore

two years ago was a pair of pure albino opossums. The white elephant is

celebrated in the religious history of Oriental nations, and is an

object of veneration and worship in Siam. White monkeys and white

roosters are also worshiped. In the Natural History Museum in London

there are stuffed examples of albinism and melanism in the lower

animals.

Melanism is an anomaly, the exact contrary of the preceding. It is

characterized by the presence in the tissues and skin of an excessive

amount of pigment. True total melanism is unknown in man, in whom is

only observed partial melanism, characterized simply by a pronounced

coloration of part of the integument.

Some curious instances have been related of an infant with a

two-colored face, and of others with one side of the face white and the

other black; whether they were cases of partial albinism or partial

melanism cannot be ascertained from the descriptions.

Such epidermic anomalies as ichthyosis, scleroderma, and molluscum

simplex, sometimes appearing shortly after birth, but generally seen

later in life, will be spoken of in the chapter on Anomalous Skin

Diseases.

Human horns are anomalous outgrowths from the skin and are far more

frequent than ordinarily supposed. Nearly all the older writers cite

examples. Aldrovandus, Amatus Lusitanus, Boerhaave, Dupre, Schenck,

Riverius, Vallisneri, and many others mention horns on the head. In the

ancient times horns were symbolic of wisdom and power. Michael Angelo

in his famous sculpture of Moses has given the patriarch a pair of

horns. Rhodius observed a Benedictine monk who had a pair of horns and

who was addicted to rumination. Fabricius saw a man with horns on his

head, whose son ruminated; the son considered that by virtue of his

ruminating characteristics his father had transmitted to him the

peculiar anomaly of the family. Fabricius Hildanus saw a patient with

horns all over the body and another with horns on the forehead.

Gastaher speaks of a horn from the left temple; Zacutus Lusitanus saw a

horn from the heel; Wroe, one of considerable length from the scapula;

Cosnard, one from the bregma; the Ephemerides, from the foot; Borellus,

from the face and foot, and Ash, horns all over the body. Home, Cooper,

and Treves have collected examples of horns, and there is one 11 inches

long and 2 1/2 in circumference in a London museum. Lozes collected

reports of 71 cases of horns,--37 in females, 31 in males, and three in

infants. Of this number, 15 were on the head, eight on the face, 18 on

the lower extremities, eight on the trunk, and three on the glans

penis. Wilson collected reports of 90 cases,--44 females, 39 males, the

sex not being mentioned in the remainder. Of these 48 were on the head,

four on the face, four on the nose, 11 on the thigh, three on the leg

and foot, six on the back, five on the glans penis, and nine on the

trunk. Lebert's collection numbered 109 cases of cutaneous horns. The

greater frequency among females is admitted by all authors. Old age is

a predisposing cause. Several patients over seventy have been seen and

one of ninety-seven.

Instances of cutaneous horns, when seen and reported by the laity, give

rise to most amusing exaggerations and descriptions. The following

account is given in New South Wales, obviously embellished with

apocryphal details by some facetious journalist: The child, five weeks

old, was born with hair two inches long all over the body; his features

were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows.

He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of

teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all

fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother

almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country

people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a

rebuff that the mother gave to a Jewish peddler selling

Crucifixion-pictures. Vexed by his persistence, she said she would

sooner have a devil in her house than his picture.

Lamprey has made a minute examination of the much-spoken-of "Horned Men

of Africa." He found that this anomaly was caused by a congenital

malformation and remarkable development of the infraorbital ridge of

the maxillary bone. He described several cases, and through an

interpreter found that they were congenital, followed no history of

traumatism, caused little inconvenience, and were unassociated with

disturbance of the sense of smell. He also learned that the deformity

was quite rare in the Cape Coast region, and received no information

tending to prove the conjecture that the tribes in West Africa used

artificial means to produce the anomaly, although such custom is

prevalent among many aborigines.

Probably the most remarkable case of a horn was that of Paul Rodrigues,

a Mexican porter, who, from the upper and lateral part of his head, had

a horn 14 inches in circumference and divided into three shafts, which

he concealed by constantly wearing a peculiarly shaped red cap. There

is in Paris a wax model of a horn, eight or nine inches in length,

removed from an old woman by the celebrated Souberbielle. Figure 75 is

from a wax model supposed to have been taken from life, showing an

enormous grayish-black horn proceeding from the forehead. Warren

mentions a case under the care of Dubois, in a woman from whose

forehead grew a horn six inches in diameter and six inches in height.

It was hard at the summit and had a fetid odor. In 1696 there was an

old woman in France who constantly shed long horns from her forehead,

one of which was presented to the King. Bartholinus mentions a horn 12

inches long. Voigte cites the case of an old woman who had a horn

branching into three portions, coming from her forehead. Sands speaks

of a woman who had a horn 6 3/4 inches long, growing from her head.

There is an account of the extirpation of a horn nearly ten inches in

length from the forehead of a woman of eighty-two. Bejau describes a

woman of forty from whom he excised an excrescence resembling a ram's

horn, growing from the left parietal region. It curved forward and

nearly reached the corresponding tuberosity. It was eight cm. long,

two cm. broad at the base, and 1 1/2 cm. at the apex, and was quite

mobile. It began to grow at the age of eleven and had constantly

increased. Vidal presented before the Academie de Medecine in 1886 a

twisted horn from the head of a woman. This excrescence was ten inches

long, and at the time of presentation reproduction of it was taking

place in the woman. Figure 76 shows a case of ichthyosis cornea

pictured in the Lancet, 1850.

There was a woman of seventy-five, living near York, who had a horny

growth from the face which she broke off and which began to reproduce,

the illustration representing the growth during twelve months. Lall

mentions a horn from the cheek; Gregory reports one that measured 7 1/2

inches long that was removed from the temple of a woman in Edinburgh;

Chariere of Barnstaple saw a horn that measured seven inches growing

from the nape of a woman's neck; Kameya Iwa speaks of a dermal horn of

the auricle; Saxton of New York has excised several horns from the

tympanic membrane of the ear; Noyes speaks of one from the eyelid;

Bigelow mentions one from the chin; Minot speaks of a horn from the

lower lip, and Doran of one from the neck.

Gould cites the instance of a horn growing from an epitheliomatous

penis. The patient was fifty-two years of age and the victim of

congenital phimosis. He was circumcised four years previously, and

shortly after the wound healed there appeared a small wart, followed by

a horn about the size of a marble. Jewett speaks of a penile horn 3 1/2

inches long and 3 3/4 inches in diameter; Pick mentions one 2 1/2

inches long. There is an account of a Russian peasant boy who had a

horn on his penis from his earliest childhood. Johnson mentions a case

of a horn from the scrotum, which was of sebaceous origin and was

subsequently supplanted by an epithelioma.

Ash reported the case of a girl named Annie Jackson, living in

Waterford, Ireland, who had horny excrescences from her joints, arms,

axillae, nipples, ears, and forehead. Locke speaks of a boy at the

Hopital de la Charite in Paris, who had horny excrescences four inches

long and 11 inches in circumference growing from his fingers and toes.

Wagstaffe presents a horn which grew from the middle of the leg six

inches below the knee in a woman of eighty. It was a flattened spiral

of more than two turns, and during forty years' growth had reached the

length of 14.3 inches. Its height was 3.8 inches, its skin-attachment

1.5 inches in diameter, and it ended in a blunt extremity of 0.5 inch

in diameter. Stephens mentions a dermal horn on the buttocks at the

seat of a carcinomatous cicatrix. Harris and Domonceau speak of horns

from the leg. Cruveilhier saw a Mexican Indian who had a horn four

inches long and eight inches in circumference growing from the left

lumbar region. It had been sawed off twice by the patient's son and was

finally extirpated by Faget. The length of the pieces was 12 inches.

Bellamy saw a horn on the clitoris about the size of a tiger's claw in

a its origin from beneath the preputium clitoridis.

Horns are generally solitary but cases of multiple formation are known

Lewin and Heller record a syphilitic case with eight cutaneous horns on

the palms and soles. A female patient of Manzuroff had as many as 185

horns.

Pancoast reports the case of a man whose nose, cheeks, forehead, and

lips were covered with horny growths, which had apparently undergone

epitheliomatous degeneration. The patient was a sea-captain of

seventy-eight, and had been exposed to the winds all his life. He had

suffered three attacks of erysipelas from prolonged exposure. When he

consulted Pancoast the horns had nearly all fallen off and were brought

to the physician for inspection; and the photograph was taken after the

patient had tied the horns in situ on his face.

Anomalies of the Hair.--Congenital alopecia is quite rare, and it is

seldom that we see instances of individuals who have been totally

destitute of hair from birth. Danz knew of two adult sons of a Jewish

family who never had hair or teeth. Sedgwick quotes the case of a man

of fifty-eight who ever since birth was totally devoid of hair and in

whom sensible perspiration and tears were absent. A cousin on his

mother's side, born a year before him, had precisely the same

peculiarity. Buffon says that the Turks and some other people practised

depilatory customs by the aid of ointments and pomades, principally

about the genitals. Atkinson exhibited in Philadelphia a man of forty

who never had any distinct growth of hair since birth, was edentulous,

and destitute of the sense of smell and almost of that of taste. He had

no apparent perspiration, and when working actively he was obliged to

wet his clothes in order to moderate the heat of his body. He could

sleep in wet clothes in a damp cellar without catching cold. There was

some hair in the axillae and on the pubes, but only the slightest down

on the scalp, and even that was absent on the skin. His maternal

grandmother and uncle were similarly affected; he was the youngest of

21 children, had never been sick, and though not able to chew food in

the ordinary manner, he had never suffered from dyspepsia in any form.

He was married and had eight children. Of these, two girls lacked a

number of teeth, but had the ordinary quantity of hair. Hill speaks of

an aboriginal man in Queensland who was entirely devoid of hair on the

head, face, and every part of the body. He had a sister, since dead,

who was similarly hairless. Hill mentions the accounts given of another

black tribe, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, that contained hairless

members. This is very strange, as the Australian aboriginals are a very

hairy race of people.

Hutchinson mentions a boy of three and a half in whom there was

congenital absence of hair and an atrophic condition of the skin and

appendages. His mother was bald from the age of six, after alopecia

areata. Schede reports two cases of congenitally bald children of a

peasant woman (a boy of thirteen and a girl of six months). They had

both been born quite bald, and had remained so. In addition there were

neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and nowhere a trace of lanugo. The

children were otherwise healthy and well formed. The parents and

brothers were healthy and possessed a full growth of hair. Thurman

reports a case of a man of fifty-eight, who was almost devoid of hair

all his life and possessed only four teeth. His skin was very delicate

and there was absence of sensible perspiration and tears. The skin was

peculiar in thinness, softness, and absence of pigmentation. The hair

on the crown of the head and back was very fine, short, and soft, and

not more in quantity than that of an infant of three months. There was

a similar peculiarity in his cousin-german. Williams mentions the case

of a young lady of fifteen with scarcely any hair on the eyebrows or

head and no eyelashes. She was edentulous and had never sensibly

perspired. She improved under tonic treatment.

Rayer quotes the case of Beauvais, who was a patient in the Hopital de

la Charite in 1827. The skin of this man's cranium was apparently

completely naked, although in examining it narrowly it was found to be

beset with a quantity of very white and silky hair, similar to the down

that covers the scalp of infants; here and there on the temples there

were a few black specks, occasioned by the stumps of several hairs

which the patient had shaved off. The eyebrows were merely indicated by

a few fine and very short hairs; the free edges of the eyelids were

without cilia, but the bulb of each of these was indicated by a small,

whitish point. The beard was so thin and weak that Beauvais clipped it

off only every three weeks. A few straggling hairs were observed on the

breast and pubic region, as in young people on the approach of puberty.

There was scarcely any under the axillae. It was rather more abundant

on the inner parts of the legs. The voice was like that of a full-grown

and well-constituted man. Beauvais was of an amorous disposition and

had had syphilis twice. His mother and both sisters had good heads of

hair, but his father presented the same defects as Beauvais.

Instances are on record of women devoid of hair about the genital

region. Riolan says that he examined the body of a female libertine who

was totally hairless from the umbilical region down.

Congenital alopecia is seen in animals. There is a species of dog, a

native of China but now bred in Mexico and in the United States, which

is distinguished for its congenital alopecia. The same fact has been

observed occasionally in horses, cattle, and dogs. Heusner has seen a

pigeon destitute of feathers, and which engendered a female which in

her turn transmitted the same characteristic to two of her young.

Sexualism and Hair Growth.--The growth or development of the hair may

be accelerated by the state of the organs of generation. This is

peculiarly noticeable in the pubic hairs and the beard, and is fully

exemplified in the section on precocious development (Chapter VII);

however, Moreau de la Sarthe showed a child to the Medical Faculty of

Paris in whom precocious development of the testicles had influenced

that of the hair to such a degree that, at the age of six, the chest of

this boy was as thickly set with hair as is usually seen in adults. It

is well known that eunuchs often lose a great part of their beards, and

after removal of the ovaries women are seen to develop an extra

quantity of hair. Gerberon tells of an infant with a beard, and

Paullini and the Ephemerides mention similar instances.

Bearded women are not at all infrequent. Hippocrates mentions a female

who grew a beard shortly after menstruation had ceased. It is a

well-recognized fact that after the menopause women become more

hirsute, the same being the case after removal of any of the functional

generative apparatus. Vicat saw a virgin who had a beard, and Joch

speaks of "foeminis barbati." Leblond says that certain women of

Ethiopia and South America have beards and little or no menstruation.

He also says that sterility and excessive chastity are causes of female

beards, and cites the case of Schott of a young widow who secluded

herself in a cloister, and soon had a beard.

Barbara Urster, who lived in the 16th century, had a beard to her

girdle. The most celebrated "bearded woman" was Rosine-Marguerite

Muller, who died in a hospital in Dresden in 1732, with a thick beard

and heavy mustache. Julia Pastrana had her face covered with thick hair

and had a full beard and mustache. She exhibited defective dentition in

both jaws, and the teeth present were arranged in an irregular fashion.

She had pronounced prognathism, which gave her a simian appearance.

Ecker examined in 1876 a woman who died at Fribourg, whose face

contained a full beard and a luxuriant mustache.

Harris reports several cases of bearded women, inmates of the Coton

Hill Lunatic Asylum. One of the patients was eighty-three years of age

and had been insane forty-four years following a puerperal period. She

would not permit the hair on her face to be cut, and the curly white

hairs had attained a length of from eight to ten inches on the chin,

while on the upper lip the hairs were scarcely an inch. This patient

was quite womanly in all her sentiments. The second case was a woman of

thirty-six, insane from emotional melancholia. She had tufts of thick,

curly hair on the chin two inches long, light yellowish in color, and a

few straggling hairs on the upper lip. The third case was that of a

woman of sixty-four, who exhibited a strong passion for the male sex.

Her menstruation had been regular until the menopause. She plaited her

beard, and it was seven or eight inches long on the chin and one inch

on the lip. This woman had extremely hairy legs. Another case was that

of a woman of sixty-two, who, though bald, developed a beard before the

climacteric. Her structural proportions were feminine in character, and

it is said that her mother, who was sane, had a beard also. A curious

case was that of a woman of twenty-three (Mrs. Viola M.), who from the

age of three had a considerable quantity of hair on the side of the

cheek which eventually became a full beard. She was quite feminine was

free from excessive hair elsewhere, her nose and forehead being

singularly bare. Her voice was very sweet; she was married at seventeen

and a half, having two normal children, and nursed each for one month.

"The bearded woman" of every circus side-show is an evidence of the

curious interest in which these women are held. The accompanying

illustration is a representation of a "bearded woman" born in Bracken

County, Ky. Her beard measured 15 inches in length.

There is a class of anomalies in which there is an exaggerated

development of hair. We would naturally expect to find the primitive

peoples, who are not provided with artificial protection against the

wind, supplied with an extra quantity of hair or having a hairy coat

like animals; but this is sometimes found among civilized people. This

abnormal presence of hair on the human body has been known for many

years; the description of Esau in the Bible is an early instance.

Aldrovandus says that in the sixteenth century there came to the Canary

Islands a family consisting of a father, son, and two daughters, who

were covered all over their bodies by long hair, and their portrait,

certainly reproduced from life, resembles the modern instances of "dog

men."

In 1883 there was shown in England and France, afterward in America, a

girl of seven named "Krao," a native of Indo-China. The whole body of

this child was covered with black hair. Her face was of the prognathic

type, and this, with her extraordinary prehensile powers of feet and

lips, gave her the title of "Darwin's missing link." In 1875 there was

exhibited in Paris, under the name of "l'homme-chien" Adrien Jeftichew,

a Russian peasant of fifty-five, whose face, head, back, and limbs were

covered with a brown hairy coat looking like wool and several

centimeters long. The other parts of the body were also covered with

hair, but less abundantly. This individual had a son of three,

Theodore, who was hairy like himself.

A family living in Burmah (Shive-Maon, whose history is told by

Crawford and Yule), consisting of a father, a daughter, and a

granddaughter, were nearly covered with hair. Figure 84 represents a

somewhat similar family who were exhibited in this country.

Teresa Gambardella, a young girl of twelve, mentioned by Lombroso, was

covered all over the body, with the exception of the hands and feet, by

thick, bushy hair. This hypertrichosis was exemplified in this country

only a few months since by a person who went the rounds of the dime

museums under the euphonious name of "Jo-Jo, the dog-face boy." His

face was truly that of a skye-terrier.

Sometimes the hairy anomalies are but instances of naevus pilosus. The

Indian ourang-outang woman examined at the office of the Lancet was an

example of this kind. Hebra, Hildebrandt, Jablokoff, and Klein describe

similar cases. Many of the older "wild men" were individuals bearing

extensive hairy moles.

Rayer remarks that he has seen a young man of sixteen who exhibited

himself to the public under the name of a new species of wild man whose

breast and back were covered with light brown hair of considerable

length.

The surface upon which it grew was of a brownish hue, different from

the color of the surrounding integument. Almost the whole of the right

arm was covered in the same manner. On the lower extremity several

tufts of hair were observed implanted upon brown spots from seven to

eight lines in diameter symmetrically disposed upon both legs. The hair

was brown, of the same color as that of the head. Bichat informs us

that he saw at Paris an unfortunate man who from his birth was

afflicted with a hairy covering of his face like that of a wild boar,

and he adds that the stories which were current among the vulgar of

individuals with a boar's head, wolf's head, etc., undoubtedly referred

to cases in which the face was covered to a greater or less degree with

hair. Villerme saw a child of six at Poitiers in 1808 whose body,

except the feet and hands, was covered with a great number of prominent

brown spots of different dimensions, beset with hair shorter and not so

strong as that of a boar, but bearing a certain resemblance to the

bristles of that animal. These spots occupied about one-fifth of the

surface of this child's skin. Campaignac in the early part of this

century exhibited a case in which there was a large tuft of long black

hair growing from the shoulder. Dufour has detailed a case of a young

man of twenty whose sacral region contained a tuft of hair as long and

black, thick and pliant, as that of the head, and, particularly

remarkable in this case, the skin from which it grew was as fine and

white as the integument of the rest of the body. There was a woman

exhibited recently, under the advertisement of "the lady with a mane,"

who had growing from the center of her back between the shoulders a

veritable mane of long, black hair, which doubtless proceeded from a

form of naevus.

Duyse reports a case of extensive hypertrichosis of the back in a girl

aged nine years; her teeth were normal; there was pigmentation of the

back and numerous pigmentary nevi on the face. Below each scapula there

were tumors of the nature of fibroma molluscum. In addition to hairy

nevi on the other parts of the body there was localized ichthyosis.

Ziemssen figures an interesting case of naevus pilosus resembling

"bathing tights". There were also present several benign tumors

(fibroma molluscum) and numerous smaller nevi over the body. Schulz

first observed the patient in 1878. This individual's name was Blake,

and he stated that he was born with a large naevus spreading over the

upper parts of the thighs and lower parts of the trunk, like

bathing-tights, and resembling the pelt of an animal. The same was true

of the small hairy parts and the larger and smaller tumors.

Subsequently the altered portions of the skin had gradually become

somewhat larger. The skin of the large hairy naevus, as well as that of

the smaller ones, was stated by Schulz to have been in the main

thickened, in part uneven, verrucose, from very light to intensely dark

brown in color; the consistency of the larger mammiform and smaller

tumors soft, doughy, and elastic. The case was really one of large

congenital naevus pilosus and fibroma molluscum combined.

A Peruvian boy was shown at the Westminster Aquarium with a dark, hairy

mole situated in the lower part of the trunk and on the thighs in the

position of bathing tights. Nevins Hyde records two similar cases with

dermatolytic growths. A sister of the Peruvian boy referred to had a

still larger growth, extending from the nucha all over the back. Both

she and her brother had hundreds of smaller hairy growths of all sizes

scattered irregularly over the face, trunk, and limbs. According to

Crocker, a still more extraordinary case, with extensive dermatolytic

growths all over the back and nevi of all sizes elsewhere, is described

and engraved in "Lavater's Physiognomy," 1848. Baker describes an

operation in which a large mole occupying half the forehead was removed

by the knife.

In some instances the hair and beard is of an enormous length. Erasmus

Wilson of London saw a female of thirty-eight, whose hair measured 1.65

meters long. Leonard of Philadelphia speaks of a man in the interior of

this country whose beard trailed on the ground when he stood upright,

and measured 2.24 meters long. Not long ago there appeared the famous

so-called "Seven Sutherland Sisters," whose hair touched the ground,

and with whom nearly every one is familiar through a hair tonic which

they extensively advertised. In Nature, January 9, 1892, is an account

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 769