Hutchinson exhibited a photograph showing the absence of the radius and thumb, with shortening of the forearm. Conditions more or less approaching this had occurred in several members of the same family. In some they were associated with defects of development in the lower extremities also.
The varieties of club-foot--talipes varus, valgus, equinus, equino-varus, etc.--are so well known that they will be passed with mention only of a few persons who have been noted for their activity despite their deformity. Tyrtee, Parini, Byron, and Scott are among the poets who were club-footed; some writers say that Shakespeare suffered in a slight degree from this deformity.
Agesilas, Genserie, Robert II, Duke of Normandy, Henry II, Emperor of the West, Otto II, Duke of Brunswick, Charles II, King of Naples, and Tamerlane were victims of deformed feet. Mlle.
Valliere, the mistress of Louis XIV, was supposed to have both club-foot and hip-disease. Genu valgum and genu varum are ordinary deformities and quite common in all classes.
Transpositions of the character of the vertebrae are sometimes seen. In man the lumbar vertebrae have sometimes assumed the character of the sacral vertebrae, the sacral vertebrae presenting the aspect of lumbar vertebrae, etc. It is quite common to see the first lumbar vertebra presenting certain characteristics of the dorsal.
Numerical anomalies of the vertebrae are quite common, generally in the lumbar and dorsal regions, being quite rare in the cervical, although there have been instances of six or eight cervical vertebrae. In the lower animals the vertebrae are prolonged into a tail, which, however, is sometimes absent, particularly when hereditary influence exists. It has been noticed in the class of dogs whose tails are habitually amputated to improve their appearance that the tail gradually decreases in length. Some breeders deny this fact.
Human Tails.--The prolongation of the coccyx sometimes takes the shape of a caudal extremity in man. Broca and others claim that the sacrum and the coccyx represent the normal tail of man, but examples are not infrequent in which there has been a fleshy or bony tail appended to the coccygeal region. Traditions of tailed men are old and widespread, and tailed races were supposed to reside in almost every country. There was at one time an ancient belief that all Cornishmen had tails, and certain men of Kent were said to have been afflicted with tails in retribution for their insults to Thomas a Becket. Struys, a Dutch traveler in Formosa in the seventeenth century, describes a wild man caught and tied for execution who had a tail more than a foot long, which was covered with red hair like that of a cow.
The Niam Niams of Central Africa are reported to have tails smooth and hairy and from two to ten inches long. Hubsch of Constantinople remarks that both men and women of this tribe have tails. Carpus, or Berengarius Carpensis, as he is called, in one of his Commentaries said that there were some people in Hibernia with long tails, but whether they were fleshy or cartilaginous could not be known, as the people could not be approached.
Certain supposed tailed races which have been described by sea-captains and voyagers are really only examples of people who wear artificial appendages about the waists, such as palm-leaves and hair. A certain Wesleyan missionary, George Brown, in 1876spoke of a formal breeding of a tailed race in Kali, off the coast of New Britain. Tailless children were slain at once, as they would be exposed to public ridicule. The tailed men of Borneo are people afflicted with hereditary malformation analogous to sexdigitism. A tailed race of princes have ruled Rajoopootana, and are fond of their ancestral mark. There are fabulous stories told of canoes in the East Indies which have holes in their benches made for the tails of the rowers. At one time in the East the presence of tails was taken as a sign of brute force.
There was reported from Caracas the discovery of a tribe of Indians in Paraguay who were provided with tails. The narrative reads somewhat after this manner: One day a number of workmen belonging to Tacura Tuyn while engaged in cutting grass had their mules attacked by some Guayacuyan Indians. The workmen pursued the Indians but only succeeded in capturing a boy of eight. He was taken to the house of Senor Francisco Galeochoa at Posedas, and was there discovered to have a tail ten inches long. 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.
