MONSTROSITY
MONSTRO’SITY, in Anatomy. When an infant, or the young of any animal, comes into the world impressed with morbid changes, which occur only in foetal life, and of which it has never been observed that they have originated in the same way after birth, such an infant or young animal is said to be a monster or monstrosity. Monsters were formerly regarded as prodigies of nature; and in the dark ages, their occurrence in the humanspecies was usually ascribed to the intercourse of demons and witches. It is now perfectly understood that the formation of those apparently anomalous beings may be accounted for by the same laws as those which govern the formation of perfect individuals—the only difference being, that these laws in the case of monstrosity are more or less arrested or otherwise perverted.
Amongst the principal causes of monstrosity may be mentioned : 1. Something deficient or abnormal in the generative matter of one or both parents, because, as has been shown in the articleHEREDITARINESS.malformations are frequently transmitted from parents to the children. Here the morbid change is impressed upon the fœtus at the moment of impregnation. 2. Some morbid condition of the maternal organs or constitution may exercise a disturbing influence upon development. 3. Diseases and abnormal states of the placenta, of the membranes of the ovum, and of the umbilical cord, may induce an arrest of development; for example, it may be easily understood how abnormal shortness of the cord may favor the origin of fissure of the abdomen; while a cord of disproportional length may coil round one of the extremities, and by constriction may dwarf it, or even amputate it. 4. Morbid influences acting directly on the fœtus, as mechanical injuries and diseases affecting it, are the most frequent causes of malformations. From the experiments of several observers, it has been shown, that by submitting hens’ eggs to various mechanical influences during incubation, the development of the embryo may be interrupted, or modified in such a manner as to give rise to malformations; and many observations tend to prove, that mechanical influences affecting the womb (kicks, blows, or falls) in the early months of pregnancy, produce certain malformations, by causing an arrest of development. Moreover, the fact, that certain malformations usually occur only in twin or triplet pregnancies, favors the view, that certain monstrosities are due to pressure and confined space.
Of the various classifications of monstrosities, the following is perhaps the best: 1. Malformations in which certain parts of the normal body are entirely absent, or are too small. 2. Malformations produced by fusion or coalescence of organs. 3. Malformations in which parts naturally united, as in the mesial line of the body, are separated, and clefts or fissures occur. 4. Malformations in which natural openings are closed. 5. Malformations of excess, or in which certain parts have attained a disproportional size. 6. Malformations in which one or more parts have an abnormal position. 7. Malformations of the generative organs.
The first class includes (1) completely shapeless malformations, In which the monster presents the appearance of a lump or mass, with no indication of definite organs; (2) malformations whichconsist of only a more or less rudimentary trunk, with no head or extremities; (3) trunkless monsters, in which the inferior parts of the body are wanting, and little more than a rudimentary head is present, which, instead of neck and trunk, is furnished with a pouch-like appendage, containing rudimentary viscera and pieces of bone; (4) malformations in which the head, and sometimes a part of the upper part of the body, are wanting, constituting acephalic monsters, which are by no means rare, the number of recorded cases in the human subject being over 100; (5) malformations in which the whole head is not absent, but some of its component parts are wanting—as, for example, the brain, some of the cranial bones, the nose, or the eyes; (6) cases in which the extremities .are absent or imperfect to a greater or less degree—for example, they may be mere stumps, with the fingers and toes either absent .or rudimentary, or the hands and feet may appear to exist independently of arms and legs, and to be inserted immediately into the trunk; (7) cases in which all the organs may be present, but some of them may be too small—thus, there may be general dwarfishness, or the head or limbs may be abnormally small. None of the monsters of this class, except those included in the last two groups, are viable.
In the second class are included such cases as (1) the various forms of cyclopia, or coalescence of the eyes; these malformations .are not very rare in the human subject, and are of frequent occurreace in pigs and other animals; although usually born alive, these monsters are not viable; (2) coalescence of the lower extremities either into a common limb, which supports two feet, or into an undefined tail-like mass; (3) minor amalgamations, whichdo not affect vitality, as more or less perfect coalescence of the fingers and toes.
The third class embraces such cases as (1) fissures of the cranium, which are generally due to hydrocephalus in the fœtus; (2) harelip and cleft palate; (3) fissures on the neck, whose origin is due to the respiratory clefts—which, during the formation of the embryo, appear in the cervical region, not uniting at an early stage, as in the normal condition, but remaining more or less open; (4) fissures of the vertebral arches of the spinal column,
occasioning the affection known as spina bifida; (5) fissures of the thorax, in which case the lungs or heart are more or less exposed; (6) fissures of the abdomen.
The malformations of the fourth class include congenital closure of the anus, the mouth, the nostrils, &c.
The malformations of the fifth class may be arranged in two divisions, according as certain parts are too large, or there are supernumerary organs.
The sixth class is very extensive, and embraces many varieties. One or more parts may be disproportionally large—as, for ex ample, the head in cases of congenital hydrocephalus; or theft, may be one or several supernumerary organs—a sub-class which presents a very great range, from the simplest cases, in which a single joint of a finger is supernumerary, to those of a highly complicated nature, when two or even three bodies are united by some one point. There may be a single head and trunk and supernumerary parts—as, for example, supernumerary teeth, vertebrae (giving rise to the formation of a tail in the human subject), ribs, mammae, fingers, toes, &c.; or there maybe malformations with more than one head and trunk—double, or even triplet monsters. This sub-class is divisible into two groups, according as the united individuals are equally developed, or as only one is developed; the second being more or less atrophied, and forming a parasitic appendage to the first.
As examples of the first group, we mention (1) duplication of the head and upper part of the vertebral column; (2) duplication of the head, neck, and upper extremities, while the chest and abdomen are single, or fused into one another (in this group, we must place the twin-monster, Rita Christina, who was born in Sardinia in March 1829, and was brought alive to Paris, where she died in the November of that year); (3) almost complete duplication, with separation of the two bodies, except at a single spot, as in the case of the Siamese twins; (4) triplet monsters, such as the child with three heads born in 1832 in Catania (see Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Histoire des Anomalies de l’Organization, vol. iii. p. 327). To the second group belongs such cases as the following: (1) a perfect individual may bear on its head another head, with traces of the rest of the body; (2) on a well-developed body, a second, smaller and defective one, may be situated, which, after birth, does not increase in size; (3) in a more or less perfectly developed individual, there may be concealed, commonly in the abdomen, parts of a second individual—a condition which has received the name of fœtus in fætu, and which is most probably caused by the inclusion of one germ by another.
To the sixth class belong (1) those cases in which there is a reversing of the position of the internal organs—when the heart and spleen lie upon the right, and the liver and cæcum on the left side; (2) anomalies in the course and distribution of individual vessels.
The malformations constituting the seventh class have been sufficiently noticed in the article HERMAPHRODITISM.
The term Teratology (from the Greek words teras, a prodigy, and logos, a discourse) is now frequently applied to the history and science of monstrosities.—For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to Geoffrey St. Hilaire (1832—1836); Otto (1841); to the article ‘Teratology,’ by Vrolik, in The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology; to the German works of Forster (1861) on human, and Gurlt (1877) on animal monsters.
MONSTROSITY, in Botany, is a malformation or abnormal development of any part of a plant. It may take place, however, at any period of the growth of a plant, as to any new organ that is developed, and sometimes merely affects a particular organ or some portion of a plant, as a particular leaf, flower, petal, sepal &c., or the leaves or flowers of a particular branch, whilst in other cases all the organs of the same kind exhibit the same abnormal character. As in animals, it is now well known that monstrosities in plants are the result of special conditions affecting the operation of ordinary natural laws; and the study of monstrosities is very important in relation to that of the nature, development, and metamorphosis of organs. In the articleMETAMORPHOSISOF ORGANS, some of the most frequent monstrosities are alluded to. Monstrosities in plants are not always, as in animals, reckoned deformities. Double flowers afford a familiar example of an opposite kind; although with regard to the plant itself they have the effect of unfitting it for one of the functions of a perfect plant, reproduction by seed.