Part 48

It therefore appears to me more than probable that monstruosities are by no means original mal-conformations, but arise, during gestation, from physical or moral influences that affect the mother, however unconscious she may be of their action. We have frequent instances of violence occasioning preternatural developements. Mr. Giron Buzareingues mentions that a violent blow was given to a gravid bitch, who produced eight pups, all of which excepting one, had the hind-legs wanting, malconformed, or weak.

A further disquisition would lead me beyond the limits of a sketch. I shall therefore relate some curious cases of monstruosities, that would seem to set at nought our ideas regarding the _indispensability_ of certain organs to the functions of life.

Various instances are recorded of the union of two or more foetuses. We have lately seen the Siamese twins, and such a preternatural formation is by no means uncommon. In the Journal de Verdun, 1709, a case is related of two twin female children who were united at the loins, with only one intestinal canal. They were seven years old, could walk about, embrace each other in the fondest manner, and both were proficient in several languages. Buffon gives the history of two Hungarian girls, who were also joined together in the lumbar region. Helena, who was the first-born, became tall and straight; Judith, her sister, was of a diminutive size, and slightly arched. At six years of age she was attacked with hemiplegia, and never recovered perfect health. Helena was sprightly and intelligent. With the exception of the smallpox and measles, under which they laboured at the same time, their ailments were always distinct. They lived until the age of twenty-two, when Judith was attacked with a fever, that shortly terminated her existence. The horror expressed by Helena in beholding her dead companion, with whom she had been identified in sisterly love for so many years, cannot be described; but her agonies were of short duration, for in three minutes she also had ceased to live. On their _post mortem_ examination each was found to have possessed distinct viscera. The aorta and vena cava were united above the origin of the iliac arteries, so that no severing operation could have been performed without destroying them both.

Duverney relates the case of twins united at the lower part of the abdomen. They only lived six days; the strongest of the two died first, and was followed by his companion three hours after. Haller records upwards of thirty cases of a similar nature; and various skeletons of this description are to be seen in our museums. Munster saw two girls united by the forehead. They had then attained their tenth year, when one of them died. It therefore became indispensable to separate them, but the unfortunate creature did not survive the operation. Daubenton describes two children united at the back of the head.

Such miserable junctions naturally suggested the idea of effecting a separation by surgical means; but I believe this operation was only once performed with a successful result. Two little girls were united from the xiphoid cartilage to the umbilicus. The uniting substance was an inch in thickness, six lines in breadth, and five inches in circumference. In the centre of the junction was the umbilical ring common to both. The umbilical vessels were separated and tied; the ligature fell at the expiration of nine days; and then Zwingler, the operator, proceeded to divide the remaining bonds.

Various monsters have been seen with four arms and three legs, or four legs and two or three arms. The history of the double-headed infant of Oxford is curious. This creature had two heads diametrically opposite, four arms, one body and two lower extremities. These heads were doubly baptized; one by the name of Martha, and the other Mary. The features were different; Mary's was smiling, Martha's dejected. The latter died two days after her birth, and Mary expired a quarter of an hour after.

A curious monster of a similar description is recorded to have lived at the court of James IV. of Scotland. It had been taught several languages, and music. One head was intelligent, the other remarkably stupid. This creature lived twenty-eight years, when one of the individuals died. The other survived several days, but gradually drooped as the body of his late companion was decomposing. In olden writers we have many curious cases. How far they may be entitled to credit I cannot say; although we have no reason to deny the fact, when we daily witness the most singular malconformations. Liceti relates the case of a child with two legs, but seven heads and seven arms. Bartholinus mentions one with three heads, each of which uttered the most horrible cries, and then expired.

While these unfortunates were visited with several heads, instances have been known of heads that had attained a most enormous volume. In Tunis, there was a Moor of thirty years of age, whose head was so large, that crowds followed him in the streets; and his mouth was of such a capacity, that he could devour a large melon as easily as an apple. This man was an idiot. At Lucca, Benvenuti saw a lad, otherwise well-proportioned, whose head at the age of seven began to increase so rapidly, that when he was twenty-seven it measured thirty-seven inches eight lines in circumference, and his face was fifteen inches long.

Singular monstruosities have been seen, where heads and bodies seemed actually to be growing from or hanging to individuals. Winslow knew an Italian child, of eight years of age, who carried a little head under the third left rib, and peeping out as if the body of the one had been concealed in that of the other. Both heads had been christened; the one James, the other Matthew. When the ear of little Matthew was pinched, his host James forthwith began to roar. The Bengal child, whose case is related by Valentin and Horne, is equally singular. Here one head was placed above the other, the superior one nearly as well conformed as the lower; both adhered intimately. The upper face assumed somewhat of an oblique direction. Each head had its distinct brain: sometimes one head was fast asleep while his neighbour was wide awake, and one head would cry most piteously if you pulled the hair of the other; but, what was still more singular, when the one was fed, its companion expressed its gratification, and water flowed from its mouth. This monster lived four years, and probably would have lived much longer, but for the bite of a venomous reptile.

In a former article I alluded to encephalous and anencephalous cases, where there were either no heads or heads without brains. Of the first variety Béclard relates the following: A woman at Angers was delivered of twins, one of which not only was without a head, but only showed the inferior part of the body; without arms, a small stump-like excrescence growing from the upper part of the chest; the feet were turned inwards, and without toes. The creature was of the male sex. The body presented one cavity without any diaphragm; nor could any trace of liver, spleen, oesophagus, or stomach be detected: the intestinal tube commenced at the upper part of the body, but was impervious; the pancreas and kidneys were as usual; the umbilical vein arose from the cava, and the umbilical arteries from the hypogastric. There were ten ribs on each side, and the spinal marrow threw out its regular nerves.

Brunel has recorded the case of a male infant born without brains. The frontal bone was thrown back, and flattened on the sphenoid in such a manner that the eyes appeared above his head. The parietal and the squamous portion of the temporal were wanting, although the organ of hearing was well conformed. Not a vestige of brain could be discovered; yet the carotid and vertebral arteries crossed the basis of the cranium. The spinal marrow arose from the fourth cervical vertebra. The organs of sight were perfect. Saviard describes an infant in which all the bones of the cranium were wanting, and, instead of a brain, the skin merely covered a cyst, containing a red pulpy substance resembling brain, whence arose several nerves.

It is, no doubt, to these malconformations that we are to attribute the various stories of children with heads of monkeys, goats, pigs, &c., or of that child whose face represented the devil, and who was described as "Cacodæmonis picturæ quàm humanæ figuræ similius," &c. The idle tales of Cyclopes are also to be sought in such accidental preternatural appearances, and several instances are recorded of children born with a single eye in the forehead. It would be useless to dwell longer on this painful subject. Those who wish for more information may gratify their curiosity by consulting the works of Haller, Soemmering, and other writers, who have treated this matter _ex professo_.

In conclusion, it appears to me that monstruosities are purely accidental, subject to no laws of nature, but deviations from them. We leave to theologasters the question of their being visitations of divine wrath. The only theories that can admit of discussion are the following: 1st, The imagination of the mother; 2nd, Accidental causes; and 3rd, An original monstrous germ. Maternal marks arising from longings and terror, as I have already observed, seemed to warrant the first conclusion; yet it is not tenable. What has imagination to do with the vegetable kingdom, which also presents monstrous conformations? Are we to attribute the same power of imagination to the brute creation? and, although we may fully admit the sympathy that exists between the uterine system and external objects, yet we cannot refer headless and double and triple embryos to this influence. The last hypothesis is also fraught with objections. We have every reason to believe that all germs or seed are perfect in themselves. Were there monstrous germs, there would ensue monstrous races. That germs may be accidentally vitiated and impaired there can be no doubt; but such an adventitious occurrence does not constitute an original monstruosity. Duverney and Winslow maintained that, in the case of a double monster, the monstruosity arose in the primitive germ. Lemery and other physiologists, on the contrary, insisted that double foetuses arise, as I have already stated, from a junction or fusion between two separate bodies, or, in short, the union of twins or triple conceptions, &c. Anatomical investigations confirmed this opinion, since in double-headed foetuses two distinct sets of organs are generally found.

This subject has occupied the most ingenious philosophers for centuries; and the result of their experiments and debates seems to warrant the probability of these melancholy deviations from nature, foolishly denominated _lusi naturæ_, being purely accidental. The experiments of Jacobi seem to confirm this opinion, since he was able to produce preternatural fecundation in the eggs of fishes.

This investigation may appear idle; yet, in a physiological point of view, it is fraught with interest as regarding the generation of animals and plants. Its study affords a lively illustration of those laws of attraction and repulsion that regulate the universe, and which seem to admit that every particle of matter should be endowed with a specific vitality, a specific individuality. This attraction is daily seen in the fecundation of the spawn of fish. Myriads of these eggs are accumulated in ponds and rivers; yet in this mass the fecundating principle solely selects and impregnates those that naturally claim its vivifying powers. Wonderful harmony, that man alone endeavours to destroy!--harmony so perfect, that Aristoxenus and Alcmæon maintained that it was an emanation of the diapason of celestial music between the planets, our globe, and our five senses, forming a diatonic series of seven tones; while Hippocrates justly denominated these organic laws the CONFLUXUS UNUS, CONSPIRATIO UNICA, CONSENTIENTIA OMNIA.

LONGEVITY.

The greater the complexity of a piece of machinery, and the more labour it is called upon to perform, the more rapid will be its wear and tear. This applies to human life as well as to mechanism. The derangement of its component parts--its springs and wheels, will also be in the ratio of their complication. Thus do we find that the brute creation are less subject to those affections that abridge their days than mankind. Their life is natural, except when under the sway of domestication: ours is artificial; and high civilization tends to render it still more unnatural than it would most probably have been in a simple and patriarchal existence. Endowed with more acuteness of sensibility than animals, we are rendered more susceptible of the extremes of pleasure and of pain; and our voluptuous enjoyments are perhaps more prejudicial than our sufferings. Had not the Creator wisely granted us the faculty of reasoning, we should have been the most wretched of all organized beings.

The tenure of life depends upon the sum of vitality originally deposited, and the extent of our drafts upon this capital, which we too frequently exhaust by untimely expenses. Experience has proved that under ordinary circumstances, man can live six or seven times longer than the years required to attain puberty. This epoch is placed at our fourteenth year. This calculation would therefore yield from 84 to 98 years of age. Our own imprudences, and the disorders resulting from them, are more hostile in abridging this period than nature, all-wise and all-bountiful. Indeed, when we reflect on all the excesses to which we expose our frail and complicated being, as if we were resolved to try by every possible experiment how far it possesses the power of resisting destructive agents, we can only marvel in beholding so many instances of longevity. In this wasteful existence how many valuable hours do we not lose? how many real enjoyments have we not deprived ourselves of? When compared to the immensity of time, life is but an idle span. Let us deduct even from old age the years of infancy, the years of caducity, and the years of sleep,--alas! what remaineth of our many and our energetic days? Maupertuis calculated that in an ordinary life man could scarcely enjoy more than three years of happiness, mixed up with sixty or eighty years of misery or insipidity; and yet how miserable are we at the thought of quitting this short-leased tenement, though every wretchedness renders our abode a constant scene of uneasiness. It has been computed that out of about nine hundred millions of human beings that are scattered over the globe, it is more than probable that we could not find nine thousand individuals blessed with happiness, even taking happiness in its most limited sense--content. Were it not for the terrors of futurity, it is more than probable that our existence would lose much of its value. Socrates termed philosophy "the preparation for death;" the same may be said of our existence.

Happily for man, life is a dream, all is illusion; sufferings alone are positive; Pandora's box is its best illustration. Could we have slept away our existence in constant visions, we should have lived as long as in a waking state. When we contemplate the flocks of human beings scattered like cattle on the face of the universe, with scarcely more intellect than the beasts of the same field, we might ask for what were they created? doomed to all the horrors of sickness or of war, victims of their own follies or the ambitious projects of others! As far as regards this life, it is worse than idle to seek a solution of the problem. In these inquiries we too often seek to guess that which we can never know, and to know that which we can never guess! We all complain and murmur like the woodman in the fable, yet are loath to accept the relief we loudly call for.

The longevity of the first races, and the patriarchs, are records foreign to the investigations of natural history; we must seek for more recent examples. Haller had collected the cases of many centenaries, amounting to sixty-two who had reached from 100 to 120; twenty-nine from 120 to 130; and fifteen from 130 to 140. Few instances are authenticated beyond this period: yet we find one Eccleston, who lived 143 years; John Effingham, who attained his 144th; a Norwegian, who counted a century and a half; and our Thomas Parr would most probably have passed his 152nd year but for an excess. Henry Jenkins lived to 169; and we have on record the case of a Negress, aged 175. The Hungarian family of John Rovin were remarkable for their longevity: the father lived to 172, the wife to 164; they had been married 142 years, and their youngest child was 115; and such was the influence of habit and filial affection, that this _child_ was treated with all the severity of paternal rigidity, and did not dare to act without his _papa's_ and _mamma's_ permission.

By the calculations of Sussmilch, out of one thousand individuals, only one attained 97; and not more than one lived to the age of 100, out of one hundred and fourteen thousand. In the census of Italy, taken under Vespasian, there were found fifty-four of 100, fifty-seven of 110, two of 125, four of 130, and three of 140. In China, under Kien Long, in 1784, there were only four individuals who had attained their 100th year. According to Larrey, there were at Cairo thirty-five persons who had exceeded their century. In Russia, in 1814, out of eight hundred and ninety-one thousand six hundred and fifty deaths, were three thousand five hundred and thirty-one from 100 to 132. In a register of deaths in Paris, taken in 1817, there were found in twenty-one thousand three hundred and ninety-two, nine from 95 to 100, and the general proportion of centenaries in that city is one to three thousand.

What are the circumstances most favourable to longevity? This question is not easily answered; for we find in instances of advanced age that some individuals have led a most regular and abstemious life, while others have indulged in various excesses. These observations, however, are by no means calculated to form a conclusive opinion, as the constitutional vigour and peculiar idiosyncrasies of individuals differ widely. It is probable that a regular mode of living is the most likely to prolong our years, whatever may be that regularity in a comparative point of view. A sober man, who commits occasional excesses, is more likely to suffer than another man who gets drunk every night, provided that these excesses do not differ in regard to the quantity or quality of stimulus. In these melancholy instances the excitement is constant, and the indirect debility which it may produce has scarcely time to break down the system ere it is again wound up to its usual pitch, to use the vulgar expression, "by a hair of the same hound." The principal attribute of life that renovates for a while its moral and its physical exhaustion is _excitability_, and a constant _excitement_ is therefore indispensable, to serve as fuel to the consuming fire. This was to a certain degree the basis on which Brown founded his doctrine. He traced a scale of life like that of a thermometer,--health in the centre, death at each extremity: one scale ascending from health was graduated according to stimulating agency, the other to debilitating causes; and therefore the system was to be stimulated or lowered according to this gradation. It would be foreign to this work to point out the absurdity of this theory, although we must admit its ingenuity, and to a certain extent its correctness. The chief practical objection to it was the diversity of constitutions and idiosyncrasies, and the different action of stimulating or depressing agents in health and in disease; the effects of alimentary and medicinal substances being totally different in these several conditions.

According to habit, a certain sum of stimulus is requisite to keep up the necessary excitement; and this sum cannot be immediately and suddenly withdrawn in weak subjects without some risk; in health, perhaps, the experiment may be safely made at all times, and under any circumstances, although it might be wiser to operate the change by degrees; and it must moreover be recollected, that an habitual drunkard is in a morbid condition, and must be treated accordingly.

Six causes chiefly exert their influence upon life:

1. Climate and soil.

2. Difference of races.

3. Complexion and stature.

4. Period of development during gestation, and of subsequent growth.

5. Mode of living.

6. Moral emotions, occupations.

Climates that are moderately cold are more favourable to long life. This observation equally applies to the vegetable kingdom; and trees that have scarcely attained their full growth in northern regions are drooping in the south. There also we find beasts and birds resisting the inclemency of the weather by the thickness of their coats and plumage, or a layer of grease; while many animals burrow in the earth to seek a state of torpor and insensibility, until restored to active life by a more genial temperature. Dryness of soil is another source of health and life; and the hardy mountaineer's existence is seldom abridged by the diseases that visit the inhabitants of damp and swampy regions. Steril plains are more salubrious than regions covered with a rank and exuberant vegetation, or highly cultivated grounds, from many obvious reasons. The humid earth is not turned up, and decayed vegetable substances are not acted upon in a deleterious manner by the solar heat. When we consider the various causes of disease that must abound in crowded and corrupt cities, we might imagine that mortality would be much greater than in the country; yet observation has not proved this difference to be as material as one might expect, at least as regards disease, the sad effects of poverty and starvation not being taken into account. Various reasons may be assigned for this apparent anomaly. In cities a more regular state of excitement prevails, and man's constant occupations scarcely give him time to attend to slight ailments, that, under other circumstances, might be aggravated. Moreover, intermittent fevers and visceral affections are more frequent in the country; and cottagers are exposed to more constant damp and severer revolutions in the atmospheric constitution than citizens. The mortality amongst men is greater in cities than in women; the latter do not enjoy so long a life in the country. March and April have been found the most fatal months. They are periods of atmospheric transition from cold to a higher temperature, and must therefore prove trying to the weak and the aged. The end of autumn is also deemed a sickly period; and the equinoxes have ever been considered critical, the solstices much less injurious. In Great Britain and the north-westerly regions of Europe, northerly and easterly winds are more prevalent in March, April, and May, owing, it is supposed, to the currents established to replace the warmer air, as it rises from the surface of the Atlantic and more southerly countries. These winds are generally dry and cold, followed by fogs, and give rise to catarrhs, bronchial and pulmonary affections. It is calculated that in our climes pulmonary affections carry off one-fifth of the population, or 191 in 1000.