Anomalies And Curiosities Of Medicine Part 16

Impervious Skin.--There have been individuals who claimed that their skin was impervious to ordinary puncture, and from time to time these individuals have appeared in some of the larger medical clinics of the world for inspection. According to a recent number of the London Graphic, there is in Berlin a Singhalese who baffles all investigations by physicians by the impenetrability of his skin. The bronzed Easterner, a Hercules in shape, claims to have found an elixir which will render the human skin impervious to any metal point or sharpened edge of a knife or dagger, and calls himself the "Man with Iron Skin."

He is now exhibiting himself, and his greatest feat is to pa.s.s with his entire body through a hoop the inside of which is hardly big enough to admit his body and is closely set with sharp knife-points, daggers, nails, and similar things. Through this hoop he squeezes his body with absolute impunity. The physicians do not agree as to his immunity, and some of them think that Rhannin, which is his name, is a fakir who has by long practice succeeded in hardening himself against the impressions of metal upon his skin. The professors of the Berlin clinic, however, considered it worth while to lecture about the man's skin, p.r.o.nouncing it an inexplicable matter. This individual performed at the London Alhambra in the latter part of 1895. Besides climbing with bare feet a ladder whose rungs were sharp-edged swords, and lying on a bed of nail points with four men seated upon him, he curled himself up in a barrel, through whose inner edges nails projected, and was rolled about the stage at a rapid rate. Emerging from thence uninjured, he gracefully bows himself off the stage.

Some individuals claim immunity from burns and show many interesting feats in handling fire. As they are nothing but skilful "fire jugglers"

they deserve no mention here. The immunity of the partic.i.p.ants in the savage fire ceremonies will be discussed in Chapter IX.

Albinism is characterized by the absolute or relative absence of pigment of the skin, due to an arrest, insufficiency, or r.e.t.a.r.dation of this pigment. Following Trelat and Guinard, we may divide albinism into two cla.s.ses,--general and partial.

As to the etiology of albinism, there is no known cause of the complete form. Heredity plays no part in the number of cases investigated by the authors. D'Aube, by his observations on white rabbits, believes that the influence of consanguinity is a marked factor in the production of albinism; there are, however, many instances of heredity in this anomaly on record, and this idea is possibly in harmony with the majority of observers. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire has noted that albinism can also be a consequence of a pathologic condition having its origin in adverse surroundings, the circ.u.mstances of the parents, such as the want of exercise, nourishment, light, etc.

Lesser knew a family in which six out of seven were albinos, and in some tropical countries, such as Loango, Lower Guinea, it is said to be endemic. It is exceptional for the parents to be affected; but in a case of Schlegel, quoted by Crocker, the grandfather was an albino, and Marey describes the case of the Cape May albinos, in which the mother and father were "fair emblems of the African race," and of their children three were black and three were white, born in the following order: two consecutive black boys, two consecutive white girls, one black girl, one white boy. Sym of Edinburgh relates the history of a family of seven children, who were alternately white and black. All but the seventh were living and in good health and mentally without defect. The parents and other relatives were dark. Figure 73 portrays an albino family by the name of Cavalier who exhibited in Minneapolis in 1887.

Examples of the total absence of pigment occur in all races, but particularly is it interesting when seen in negroes who are found absolutely white but preserving all the characteristics of their race, as, for instance, the kinky, woolly hair, flattened nose, thick lips, etc. Rene Claille, in his "Voyage a Tombouctou," says that he saw a white infant, the offspring of a negro and negress. Its hair was white, its eyes blue, and its lashes flaxen. Its pupils were of a reddish color, and its physiognomy that of a Mandingo. He says such cases are not at all uncommon; they are really negro albinos. Thomas Jefferson, in his "History of Virginia," has an excellent description of these negroes, with their tremulous and weak eyes; he remarks that they freckle easily. Buffon speaks of Ethiops with white twins, and says that albinos are quite common in Africa, being generally of delicate const.i.tution, twinkling eyes, and of a low degree of intelligence; they are despised and ill-treated by the other negroes.

Prichard, quoted by Sedgwick, speaks of a case of atavic transmission of albinism through the male line of the negro race. The grandfather and the grandchild were albinos, the father being black. There is a case of a brother and sister who were albinos, the parents being of ordinary color but the grandfather an albino. Coinde, quoted by Sedgwick, speaks of a man who, by two different wives, had three albino children.

A description of the ordinary type of albino would be as follows: The skin and hair are deprived of pigment; the eyebrows and eyelashes are of a brilliant white or are yellowish; the iris and the choroid are nearly or entirely deprived of coloring material, and in looking at the eye we see a roseate zone and the ordinary pink pupil; from absence of pigment they necessarily keep their eyes three-quarters closed, being photophobic to a high degree. They are amblyopic, and this is due partially to a high degree of ametropia (caused by crushing of the eyeball in the endeavor to shut out light) and from retinal exhaustion and nystagmus. Many authors have claimed that they have little intelligence, but this opinion is not true. Ordinarily the reproductive functions are normal, and if we exclude the results of the union of two albinos we may say that these individuals are fecund.

Partial albinism is seen. The parts most often affected are the genitals, the hair, the face, the top of the trunk, the nipple, the back of the hands and fingers. Folker reports the history of a case of an albino girl having pink eyes and red hair, the rest of the family having pink eyes and white hair. Partial albinism, necessarily congenital, presenting a piebald appearance, must not be confounded with leukoderma, which is rarely seen in the young and which will be described later.

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 p.r.o.nounced 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 mollusc.u.m 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 Lusita.n.u.s, 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 Hilda.n.u.s 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 Lusita.n.u.s 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 circ.u.mference 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 p.e.n.i.s. Wilson collected reports of 90 cases,--44 females, 39 males, the s.e.x 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 p.e.n.i.s, 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 una.s.sociated 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 circ.u.mference 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 h.o.r.n.y growth from the face which she broke off and which began to reproduce, the ill.u.s.tration 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 p.e.n.i.s. The patient was fifty-two years of age and the victim of congenital phimosis. He was circ.u.mcised 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 p.e.n.i.s from his earliest childhood. Johnson mentions a case of a horn from the s.c.r.o.t.u.m, 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 h.o.r.n.y 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 h.o.r.n.y excrescences four inches long and 11 inches in circ.u.mference 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 b.u.t.tocks 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 circ.u.mference growing from the left lumbar region. It had been sawed off twice by the patient's son and was finally extirpated by f.a.get. The length of the pieces was 12 inches.

Bellamy saw a horn on the c.l.i.toris about the size of a tiger's claw in a its origin from beneath the preputium c.l.i.toridis.

Horns are generally solitary but cases of multiple formation are known Lewin and h.e.l.ler 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 h.o.r.n.y 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 dest.i.tute 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, princ.i.p.ally about the genitals. Atkinson exhibited in Philadelphia a man of forty who never had any distinct growth of hair since birth, was edentulous, and dest.i.tute 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 p.u.b.es, 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 p.u.b.erty.

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-const.i.tuted 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 dest.i.tute of feathers, and which engendered a female which in her turn transmitted the same characteristic to two of her young.

s.e.xualism 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 t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es 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 quant.i.ty 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 chast.i.ty 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 dent.i.tion in both jaws, and the teeth present were arranged in an irregular fashion.

She had p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sion for the male s.e.x.

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 quant.i.ty 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 ill.u.s.tration is a representation of a "bearded woman" born in Bracken County, Ky. Her beard measured 15 inches in length.

There is a cla.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 t.i.tle 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 mollusc.u.m. 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 mollusc.u.m) 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 mollusc.u.m 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.