They are often associated with some form of
defective audition--harelip, ocular disturbance, club-feet,
congenital hernia, etc. These supernumerary members vary from one
to five in number and are sometimes hereditary. Reverdin
describes a man having a supernumerary nipple on the right side
of his chest, of whose five children three had preauricular
appendages. Figure 104 represents a girl with a supernumerary
auricle in the neck, described in the Lancet, 1888. A little girl
under Birkett's care in Guy's Hospital more than answered to
Macbeth's requisition, "Had I three ears I'd hear thee!" since
she possessed two superfluous ones at the sides of the neck,
somewhat lower than the angle of the jaw, which were well
developed as to their external contour and made up of
fibrocartilage. There is mentioned the case of a boy of six
months on the left side of whose neck, over the middle anterior
border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, was a nipple-like
projection 1/2 inch in length; a rod of cartilage was prolonged
into it from a thin plate, which was freely movable in the
subcutaneous tissue, forming a striking analogue to an auricle.
Moxhay cites the instance of a mother who was frightened by the
sight of a boy with hideous contractions in the neck, and who
gave birth to a child with two perfect ears and three rudimentary
auricles on the right side, and on the left side two rudimentary
auricles.
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