Dlr. Ilowship examined the body of a child which died a few hours after birth in the eighth month ; it had distorted feet, imperforate anus, and the lower part of the abdomen was occupied by a large circumscribed tumour, which proved to be the bladder, the coats of which had ac quired a very extraordinary degree of strength and thickness ; the ureters were thin and mem branous from distension and curiously con torted, and terminated in what appeared like a congeries of small hydatids no larger than garden peas, loosely connected together by a cellular texture; these were the kidneys in a morbid state : the urethra was impervious. Mr. Ilowship alludes to two other nearly similar cases.! Other instances of this condition of the urinary apparatus are recorded by other writers,* and in particular Meckel has related a case in which it was conjoined with several other very remarkable deviations4 Urinary deposits.—It is no slight confirma tory proof of the secretion of urine by the foetus, that urinary deposits have been discovered in the kidneys, ureters, and bladder. Brendelius mentions two cases, in one of which a child only two days old, and in the other one of eight days old, passed calculi before death; and calculi were also found in their bladders.$ Loeseke found a calculus in the kidney of a new-bon child.§ Hoffman relates the case of a German princess who was afflicted with renal calculus, and gave birth to a daughter, who from the hour of birth suffered excru ciating pain when passing water ; the child died when three weeks old, and on examin ing the body a calculus as large as a peach kernel was found in the bladder.II Orfila saw two cases in which there were calculi in the bladder and in the kidneys at births Premature deuelopement of teeth. — It is hardly necessary to remark that at an early period of faecal existence the teeth begin to be developed, and it is equally a matter of com mon observation that they do not in general emerge from their alveoli and pass through the gums until several months afterbirth. But many instances have been observed in which some of them have been found developed and projecting above the gums at birth.
I have before me at this moment four teeth of this kind taken from the gums of the only two children of a patient of mine ; in each child the two middle incisors of the lower jaw were found projecting at birth, and in each instance it was found necessary to extract them after a few days, in consequence of their cut ting the child's tongue and preventing it from sucking.
Louis XIV. and Mirabeau are well-known instances of this premature developement of teeth, and many other cases are recorded by different authors ; for several references see GMetzer.** This abnormal condition of the teeth has been frequently found accompanying certain deformities of the facertspecially hare-lip and cleft palate.
Intestinal worms.—Ilowever repugnant to our ideas of probability the existence of worms in the intestines of the foetus in utero may at first sight appear, too many instances of the fact have been observed by authors of credit to allow of any doubt remaining on the subject ; I must, however, add that no case of the kind has come under my own observation. So far
hack as the writings of Hippocrates, we have an account of a tapeworm found in a foetus ; and it seems very probable that in the instance mentioned by Hufeland,* in which he found a tapeworm thirty ells long in a child of six months old, the animal must have existed in the child before birth. Kerkringiust found in a foetus of six months and a half, whose abdomen was much enlarged, worms of the kind usually met with in children (ascaris lumbricoides or vermi cularis). Dolmus I speaks of a dead-born child in whose intestines he found a knot of worms ; and similar observations have been made by Schrceter and others. According to Rcederer and Wagner the whipworm (trichuris) was found in a case in which the foetus partici pated in the disease (morbus mucosus), under which the mother was labouring at the time. Other instances are noticed by Brendel,§ Bloch,11 Rudolphi,11 and Graetzer.** Imperlbrate anus.— Cases of imperforate anus, of the ordinary kind, are too numerous and too well known to require any particular observation ; but this imperfection has been occasionally accompanied by other peculiarities deserving to be noticed ; one or two are, therefore, subjoined in addition to the full account of congenital malformations of this part given in the article AN us.
Dr Steel has recently recorded the particu lars of a case of a new-born infant, who was observed, one or two days after birth, to have feculent matter, mingled with the urine, dis charged by the urethra. The parts behind the scrotum were perfectly natural in every respect, except the want of an anus, of which there was not the slightest vestige; the spot where it should have been was smooth, and of a uni form colour with the adjacent parts; the sphincter muscle was evidently wanting, and there was nothing to indicate an accumulation of faeces in the vicinity.
For the first three or four weeks the child continued fretful, and was evidently declining in vigour and growth ; but from that period to a short time before its decease it apparently suffered but little, nor did its growth or strength seem to be at all impeded. It was born on the 13th of April, and in the latter part of the ensuing March its bowels became obstinately obstructed, the scrotum enlarged, and became extremely tender; and on the 30th of the same month it died.
On dissection, two apple-seeds of a large size, together with a portion of the capsule or hull which surrounds them, were found lodged in the urethra, about three-fourths of an inch from its termination ; they were so situated as completely to obstruct the passage, and a small opening had been formed immediately behind them in the urethra, through which some of the contents of the bladder had been infused into the cellular tissue, and extended to the scrotum, producing inflammation and gangrene, and so causing the child's death.