Anomalies and curiosities of medicine : being an encyclopedic collection of rare and extraordinary cases, and of the most striking instances of abnormality in all branches of medicine and surgery, derived from an exhaustive research of medical literature from its origin to the present day / abstracted, classified, annotated, and indexed, by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle ; with 295 illustrations in the text, and 12 half-tone and colored plates.

  • Gould, George M. (George Milbry), 1848-1922.
Date:
1898, ©1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anomalies and curiosities of medicine : being an encyclopedic collection of rare and extraordinary cases, and of the most striking instances of abnormality in all branches of medicine and surgery, derived from an exhaustive research of medical literature from its origin to the present day / abstracted, classified, annotated, and indexed, by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle ; with 295 illustrations in the text, and 12 half-tone and colored plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    menstruated for the first time at the age of thirty-six. Her first coitus took place at the age of fifteen, before any signs of menstruation had appeared, and from this time all through her married life she was either pregnant or suckling. Her husband died when thirty-six years old, and ever since the catamenial flow had shown itself with great regularity. She had borne twins in her second, fourth, and eighth confinement, and altogether had 16 children. Holdefrund in 1836 mentions a case in which menstruation did not commence until the seventieth year, and Hoyer a mentions one delayed to the seventy-sixth year. Marx of Krakaub speaks of a woman, aged forty-eight, who had never menstruated; until forty-two years old she had felt no symptoms, but at this time pain began, and at forty-eight regular menstruation ensued. At the time of report, four years after, she was free from pain and amenorrhea, and her flow was regular, though scant. She had been married since she was twenty-eight years of age. A somewhat similar case is mentioned by Gregoryc of a mother of 7 children who had never had her menstrual flow. There are two instances of delayed menstruation quoted :d the first, a woman of thirty, well formed, healthy, of good social position, and with all the signs of puberty except menstruation, which had never appeared ; the second, a married woman of forty-two, who throughout a healthy connubial life had never menstruated. An instance is known to the authors of a woman of forty who has never menstruated, though she is of exceptional vigor and development. She has been married many years without pregnancy. The medical literature relative to precocious impregnation is full of marvelous instances. Individually, many of the cases would be beyond credibility, but when instance after instance is reported by reliable authori- ties we must accept the possibility of their occurrence, even if we doubt the statements of some of the authorities. No less a medical celebrity than the illustrious Sir Astley Cooper remarks that on one occasion he saw a girl in Scotland, seven years old, whose pelvis was so fully developed that he was sure she could easily give birth to a child ; and Warner's case of the Jewish girl three and a half years old, with a pelvis of normal width, more than substantiates this supposition. Similar examples of precocious pelvic and sexual development are on record in abundance, and nearly every medi- cal man of experience has seen cases of infantile masturbation. The ordinary period of female maturity is astonishingly late when com- pared with the lower animals of the same size, particularly when viewed with cases of animal precocity on record. Bertholde speaks of a kid four- teen days old which was impregnated by an adult goat, and at the usual period of gestation bore a kid, which was mature but weak, to which it gave milk in abundance, and both the mother and kid grew up strong. Compared with the above, child-bearing by women of eight is not extraordinary. a 108, 1712. fc 657, 1889, 9. c 104^ 1353. d 302, iv., 193. e 202, 32.