Contributions to teratology : undescribed malformation of the lower lip occurring in four members of one family / by J. Jardine Murray.

  • Murray, John Jardine.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to teratology : undescribed malformation of the lower lip occurring in four members of one family / by J. Jardine Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    prevented. A month afterwards the wounds were entirely healed, the fingers were almost free from stiffness, and the little fellow was using his hands as freely as any child of his age. Neither he nor any of his relatives have webbed toes. Being now much interested in the peculiarities of this family, I was permitted to examine each of its members in turn; and I am thus enabled to construct the following table, which exhibits in a very striking manner the hereditary nature of physical malformations:— Father’s mother, aged 65 . . Father, aged 41 j ^Mother, aged 37. First child (girl), aged 17 . . ^Second child (girl), aged 15 + . Third child (girl), aged 13+ . j ^Fourth child (girl), aged 11—. Fifth child (girl), aged 9+ . [Miscarriage.] #Sixth child (boy), aged 5. Seventh child (boy), aged 3 . Eighth child (boy), aged 1+ . j Palate very narrow and much arched. Double hare-lip. Two sacculi in lower lip. Two sacculi in lower lip. Double hare-lip. Two sacculi in lower lip. Palate very narrow and much arched. Webbed fingers, both hands. Hare-lip (see description and figs, above). Two sacculi in lower lip. All the individuals alluded to in the above table are free from constitutional disease, and enjoy excellent health. The father was born with double hare-lip, and was operated on by the late Mr. Liston. None of his brothers or sisters were thus affected. His mother’s palate is, however, decidedly narrow; and unusually arched in formation; and while she was somewhat eagerly accounting for the existence of hare-lip in her son, by the circumstance that, shortly before his birth, she had been frightened by an elephant in Womb well’s menagerie, I was forcibly reminded of Mr. Fergusson’s remark that—‘ Often, while listening to a mother’s story about some conjectural cause for her infant’s deformity of face, he has thought that a glance at her own features in the looking-glass might have given her a more plausible reason for the condition of her offspring.’t In the contracted formation of the palate, the fifth child exactly resembles her paternal grandmother. * The mother is in every respect well formed, and her second, fourth, and sixth children are also quite normal in development. She does not inherit any tendency to malforma- tions such as are found among her children. t Practical Surgery, p. 584, 1852; p. 564, 1857.