On
interrogation the boy stated that he had a brother who had a tail
as long as his own, and that all the tribe had tails.
Aetius, Bartholinus, Falk, Harvey, Kolping, Hesse, Paulinus,
Strauss, and Wolff give descriptions of tails. Blanchard says he
saw a tail fully a span in length: and there is a description in
1690 of a man by the name of Emanuel Konig, a son of a doctor of
laws who had a tail half a span long, which grew directly
downward from the coccyx and was coiled on the perineum, causing
much discomfort. Jacob describes a pouch of skin resembling a
tail which hung from the tip of the coccyx to the length of six
inches. It was removed and was found to be thicker than the
thumb, consisted of distinctly jointed portions with synovial
capsules. Gosselin saw at his clinic a caudal appendix in an
infant which measured about ten cm. Lissner says that in 1872 he
assisted in the delivery of a young girl who had a tail
consisting of a coccyx prolonged and covered with skin, and in
1884 he saw the same girl, at this time the tail measuring nearly
13 cm.
Virchow received for examination a tail three inches long
amputated from a boy of eight weeks. Ornstein, chief physician of
the Greek army, describes a Greek of twenty-six who had a
hairless, conical tail, free only at the tip, two inches long and
containing three vertebrae.
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