He also remarks that other instances
have been observed in recruits. Thirk of Broussa in 1820
described the tail of a Kurd of twenty-two which contained four
vertebrae. Belinovski gives an account of a hip-joint amputation
and extirpation of a fatty caudal extremity, the only one he had
ever observed.
Before the Berlin Anthropological Society there were presented
two adult male Papuans, in good health and spirits, who had been
brought from New Guinea; their coccygeal bones projected 1 1/2
inches. Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Atlantic Monthly, June,
1890, says that he saw in London a photograph of a boy with a
considerable tail. The "Moi Boy" was a lad of twelve, who was
found in Cochin China, with a tail a foot long which was simply a
mass of flesh. Miller tells of a West Point student who had an
elongation of the coccyx, forming a protuberance which bulged
very visibly under the skin. Exercise at the riding school always
gave him great distress, and the protuberance would often chafe
until the skin was broken, the blood trickling into his boots.
Bartels presents a very complete article in which he describes 21
persons born with tails, most of the tails being merely fleshy
protuberances.
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