Teratology

“ There is a recognized branch of science familiar to all those who know anything of the studies relating to life, under the name of Teratology. It deals with all sorts of monstrosities which are to be met with in living beings, and more especially in animals. ”

“ Sicknesses, or other causes, produce anomalies of form, or irregularities of structure in plants, as in animals. Just as in the animal kingdom monstrosities exist, there are monstrosities in the vegetable kingdom. The science which occupies itself with monstrosities in animals is called teratology. ”

“ From this point of view teratological metamorphosis of all three kinds demands as much attention as that which is called normal. We can have no thorough knowledge of an organ, of an individual which is an aggregate of organs, or of an aggregate of individuals of whatever degree, unless we know approximately, at least, what are the limits of each. It is not possible to trace these limits accurately in the case of natural science, but the larger our knowledge and the wider our generalisations, the closer will be our approach to the truth. ”

“ With reference to the changes in the form of organs, however, it is in general more easy to ascertain the proximate cause of the appearance, and thus teratological changes of form may be grouped according as they are due to, 1, arrest of development; 2, undue or excessive development; 3, perverted development; and 4, irregular development; hence the use of the following [Pg 215] terms—Stasimorphy, Pleiomorphy, Metamorphy, and Heteromorphy—to include teratological changes really or apparently due to one or other of the causes above mentioned. ”

“ In zoology, monsters or monstrous births are the subject of Animal Teratology, a department of morphological science treating of deviations from the normal development of the embryo. The term “embryo” is conventionally limited, in human anatomy, to the ovum in the first three months of its intra-uterine existence, while it is still developing or acquiring the rudiments of its form, the term “foetus” being applied to it in the subsequent months during which the organism grows on the lines of development already laid down. ”

“ Real or apparent displacement of organs from their usual position is an almost necessary consequence of, or is, at least, coexistent with a large number of teratological phenomena. It is obvious that abnormal unions or disunions, suppressions, hypertrophies, &c., are very liable to bring about or to be accompanied with changes in the position, either of the parts directly affected or of adjoining organs. ”

“ It is not, as a rule, the whole plant, or the whole series of nutritive or of reproductive organs, that are affected, but it is certain parts only; the alteration in size is more a relative change than an absolute one.
For convenience sake the teratological alterations of size may be divided into those which are the result of [Pg 415] increased growth and those which arise from diminished action. It will be seen, therefore, that in these instances it is the bulk of the organs that is increased, not their number; moreover, their development or metamorphosis is not necessarily altered. ”

“ Teratological changes in the arrangement of organs depend upon arrest of growth, as when parts usually spirally arranged remain verticillate, owing to the non-development of the internodes, or to excessive growth, or development; but in many instances it is [Pg 7] impossible, without studying the development of the malformed flower, to ascertain whether the altered arrangement is due to an excessive or to a diminished action. ”

“ So after the skin has been exposed some hours to greater heat than natural in the warm room, other parts, as the membranes of the nostrils, or of the lungs, or of the stomach, are liable to become torpid from direct sympathy with it, when we come into air of a moderate temperature; whence catarrhs, coughs, and fevers. But if this torpor be occasioned by defect of stimulus, as after being exposed to frosty air, the accumulation of sensorial power is exerted, and a glow of the skin follows, with increased digestion, full respiration, and more vigorous circulation. ”

“ Of the four forms of cutaneous stimuli those of touch are the only kind that have so far been proved to have specialised corpuscles, the other three having developed the physiological equivalent of cold, pain and warmth spots.
Warmth spots are decidedly the least numerous of the four, those of pain being, as stated by Professor Sherrington, the most numerous. It is obvious that unless thermal stimuli become somewhat excessive they hardly can be described as “stimuli,” being more or less neutral in their action on a warm-blooded animal. ”

“ They are perfectly ignorant of the animal and comparative anatomy, and of physiology and pathology. They have no notion either of the nervous fluid, or of the solids, their restriction and relaxation. They have no other idea of the fluids than the blood, to a superabundance of which they attribute all the diseases incident to the human body. ”

“ Such elements as are serviceable are utilised when the later and higher forms of sensibility come into existence. These useful elements of protopathic sensibility become fused with epicritic elements to form the fully developed sensibility which is possessed by the normal skin. Utilisation by means of the process of fusion is the fate of the greater part of the complex body of processes which make up protopathic sensibility. It is only the smaller part which undergoes the other fate of suppression. ”

“ When by injury, disease, or operative procedure, the cortex cerebri has been put out of action, stimulation of the skin produces sensations characterised by a peculiar quality such as would be produced by over-weight of the affective aspect of sensation, very similar to that shown by protopathic sensibility. ”

“ With this distension comes a glow of heat all over the body, and a feeling of elasticity, or bien-être, which it is difficult to describe. A third series of phenomena now commence. All the glandular organs of the body now take on an augmented degree of activity, and their secretions become more copious than before the bath. Contemporary with this increase of secretion internally, the skin itself acts more vigorously, and not only the insensible, but the sensible perspiration becomes more copious. ”

“ And it has been previously explained, that though the membrane and glands, as the stomach and skin, receive great pain from want of stimulus; yet that the organs of sense, as the eye and ear, receive no pain from defect of stimulus.
Hence it follows, that the constitutions most liable to convulsion, are those which most readily become torpid in some part of the system, that is, which possess less irritability; and that those most liable to insanity, are such as have excess of sensibility ”

“ The animal sensibility of the skin sometimes diminishes and even disappears; paralysis is a proof of this. These affections, more rare than the loss of motion, often however take place. In the organs of the senses, it is the eye which most frequently loses the sensation; the ear comes next, then the skin, then the nostrils and finally the tongue, which is the sensitive organ that is always most rarely paralyzed, no doubt because it is that which is the most connected with the support of organic life, without which we could not exist. ”

“ Hence when the body is exposed to cold air, within certain limits of time and quantity of cold, a reverse sympathy of the stomach and the skin first occurs, and afterwards a direct sympathy. In the former case the expenditure of sensorial power by the skin being lessened, but not its production in the brain; the second link of the association, viz. the stomach, acquires a greater share of it. In the latter case, by the continuation of the deficient stimulus of heat, the torpor becomes extended to the brain itself, or to the trunks of the nerves; and universal inactivity follows. ”

“ But in the organism all are parts of one sympathetic whole; each reacts on each; each is altered by the other. Not a nerve is stimulated, nor a muscle moved, but the entire organism is affected. A condensation here is the cause of a greater imbibition there. The injection of salt or sugar under the skin of the frog’s leg will produce cataract in its eye. The activity of a secreting cell in the ovary, or liver, alters the condition of the brain; the activity of the brain will check the secretion of a gland, or relax the sphincters of the bladder. ”

“ When the hot fit approaches, the stomach in fevers with strong pulse regains its activity by the accumulation of the sensorial power of either irritation, if it was the part first affected, or of association if it was affected in sympathy with some other torpid part, as the spleen or liver; which accumulation is produced during its torpor. At the same time all the other parts of the system acquire greater energy of action by the accumulation of the sensorial power of association, which was produced, during their inactivity in the cold fit. ”

“ In Table III. we have the ratio of disease to complexion. In this, the light complexions show their marked predisposition to skin-diseases; and, notwithstanding their free lung-expansion, show a nearly equal liability to diseases of the respiratory organs with those of dark skins. The light men prove their greater glandular and muscular activity by their excess over dark in diseases of the digestive, circulatory, and locomotor systems; while the dark group, although composed largely of men of nervous temperament, nearly equal the light in frequency of nervous disease. ”

“ Can we conceive that the cellular texture should be an agent for the communication of pain, which is insensible to it itself? Observe also that the parts that are the most abundantly supplied with this texture, as the scrotum, the mediastinum, &c. are not those that sympathize the most. The same is true of the blood vessels, which, by their nature, are not fitted to transmit animal sensibility, and which besides do not exist in all the organs. ”

“ Just what is the distribution of the receptors for heat and for cold I am unable to state, but this much we do know, that without anesthesia the intestines may be cauterized freely without the least pain resulting, and in animals the cauterization of the brain causes no demonstrable change in the circulatory or respiratory reactions. It is probable therefore that the distribution of the pain receptors for physical contact and for heat are limited to those parts of the body that have been exposed to injurious contacts with environment. ”

“ Moreover, these spatial features of protopathic sensibility do not disappear entirely, but persist in a latent form ready to come again into consciousness if the appropriate conditions are present. This was well illustrated by certain experiments made shortly after the return of epicritic sensibility. [3] At this time, when radiation and reference were completely absent at the ordinary temperature of the room, they could be again brought into existence by cooling the limb. ”

“ There is one thing, however, for which the secretions of our ductless glands are mainly responsible, and which is most important to consider in a study of fetishes. They determine the shape, color and consistency of many parts of our body, such as complexion, hair, teeth, skeletal frame and growth.
A glance at a human body enables one to determine as accurately as an autopsy would, the size of a person's thyroid, adrenals, etc. ”

“ Though it may perhaps be stimulated into the performance of its natural action by the blood, which surrounds its origin, or by some part of that heterogeneous fluid; yet as the tears secreted by this gland are more wanted at some times than at others, its secretion is variable, like that of the saliva above mentioned, and is chiefly produced when its excretory duct is stimulated; for in our common sleep there seems to be little or no secretion of tears; though they are occasionally produced by our sensations in dreams. ”

“ So that there is manifest appearance of design in placing the organ of smell in the inside of that canal, through which the air is continually passing in inspiration and expiration.
Anatomy informs us, that the membrane pituitaria, and the olfactory nerves, which are distributed to the villous parts of this membrane, are the organs destined by the wisdom of nature to this sense; so that when a body emits no effluvia, or when they do not enter into the nose, or when the pituitary membrane or olfactory nerves are rendered unfit to perform their office, it cannot be smelled. ”

“ If there is compression of the brain, as when the skull-bones are depressed, or disease of this organ exists, as in severe typhus fever, impressions made upon the nerves of the skin will not be noticed. The same is true when the mind is engaged in intense thought or study; heat or cold may be so intense as to disorganize the skin, and not to be noticed. ”

“ The medium through which all action is transferred from mind to flesh is the blood current; the life of the body is the blood. The blood carries thought-force as waves of vibration and these waves of vibration establish action and reaction in the tissues.
We say without a chance for contradiction, that all disease of the flesh is the result of disordered states of mind; that back of all disease is the long, discordant line of thinking which it and that as the disease of the in mind, it is to the mind we must has produced flesh begins look for its cure. ”

“ The structure of the skin—with its drainage tubes requiring a free exit; its streams of blood seeking for oxygen from the air; its nerves demanding the contact and stimulus of the atmosphere—obviously points to the relation which should subsist between man and the external world—to the fact that his natural and intended state is one of nakedness. [116] Certain portions of the skin, in different parts of the world and among different nations, are commonly exposed to the air as Nature doubtless intended the whole body to be. Our faces and hands; in women, the neck, and often the shoulders ”