This nail and several of the others were of unequal
thickness and were variously curved, probably on account of the
pressure of the shoe or the neighboring digits. Rayer mentions
two nails sent to him by Bricheteau, physician of the Hopital
Necker, belonging to an old woman who had lived in the
Salpetriere. They were very thick and spirally twisted, like the
horns of a ram. Saviard informs us that he saw a patient at the
Hotel Dieu who had a horn like that of a ram, instead of a nail,
on each great toe, the extremities of which were turned to the
metatarsus and overlapped the whole of the other toes of each
foot. The skeleton of Simore, preserved in Paris, is remarkable
for the ankylosis of all the articulations and the considerable
size of all the nails. The fingers and toes, spread out and
ankylosed, ended in nails of great length and nearly of equal
thickness. A woman by the name of Melin, living in the last
century in Paris, was surnamed "the woman with nails;" according
to the description given by Saillant in 1776 she presented
another and not less curious instance of the excessive growth of
the nails.
Musaeus gives an account of the nails of a girl of twenty, which
grew to such a size that some of those of the fingers were five
inches in length.
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