The presence of arsenic in the fetal
skin alone gives an explanation of the therapeutic results of the
administration of this substance in skin diseases.
Intrauterine amputations are of interest to the medical man,
particularly those cases in which the accident has happened in
early pregnancy and the child is born with a very satisfactory
and clean stump. Montgomery, in an excellent paper, advances the
theory, which is very plausible, that intrauterine amputations
are caused by contraction of bands or membranes of organized
lymph encircling the limb and producing amputation by the same
process of disjunctive atrophy that the surgeons induce by
ligature. Weinlechner speaks of a case in which a man devoid of
all four extremities was exhibited before the Vienna Medical
Society. The amputations were congenital, and on the right side
there was a very small stump of the upper arm remaining,
admitting the attachment of an artificial apparatus. He was
twenty-seven years old, and able to write, to thread a needle,
pour water out of a bottle, etc. Cook speaks of a female child
born of Indian parents, the fourth birth of a mother twenty-six
years old. The child weighed 5 1/2 pounds; the circumference of
the head was 14 inches and that of the trunk 13 inches.
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