The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes.
- Timothy Holmes
- Date:
- 1868
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
32/700 page 2
![Curability With respect to malformations, one remark will apply to mations. most of them—viz. that they are accompanied by little or no derangement of the general health, unless they involve vital organs. As a general rule, therefore, malformations are as amenable to operative treatment as any other local disease would be. Maiforma- Yet that such deformities are not simply the result of local tions not ... 1 J merely the lesion in utero seems proved by the remarkable frequency local ac- with which they are transmitted from the parents to their hereditary children. This subject is so perfectly well known, and the nature. fact so undeniable, that I need not here waste the reader's time upon it. I may just mention, however, the following striking instance, for which I am indebted to Mr. Pick, under whose notice it came as Surgical Registrar at St. George's Hospital. A young woman, Jane E., a patient in that hospital, had malforma- tion of the hands and feet. Her grandmother had similar malforma- tion, and had nine children, of whom two sons, A and B, and two daughters, C and D, were malformed. A was the father of the present patient. He had ten children, of whom two sons and two daughters were malformed. B had nine children, of whom two sons and two daughters were malformed. C had five children, of whom three sons and one daughter were malformed. D died early unmarried. In this instance the two sexes in the family were equally affected ; but in general the female sex is believed to be more exposed to mal- formation.'- Even in those malformations which cannot in any strict sense be hereditary, since their existence is incompatible with procrea- tion, the same tendency to family relationship is seen. Thus Dr. Nel- son has published a case in which the uterus was absent in three out of five sisters (American Jour, of Medical Science, July 1862, p. 301) ; and I heard recently of a case in which two brothers were affected with extroversion of the bladder. J oined The subject of malformations commences naturally with twins. ^jia£ very sjngU]ar an([ extremely rare form of malforma- tion, in which two living or viable individuals are born who are united at some part of their bodies. The examples of joined twins which are on record are not numerous.f The Siamese twins, who were attached by a broad ligament * It will be noticed in the sequel that almost all the published cases of con- genital sacral tumour and attached foetus in the sacral region were in females. t The following are, if not the only, at least the best-known and most re- markable instances of living joined twins on record : 1. The Siamese twins (males). Phil. Trans. 1830.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20416325_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
