MONSTER

(Lat. monstrum.) Any thing out of the common order of nature is occasionally designated by this term; but it is physiologically employed under a more limited acceptation, and applied to animals in which one or more parts of the body present some congenital malformation. This is sometimes apparent externally, and then must amount to something exceeding any ordinary deformity; or it may be confined to internal organs. Buffon, Blumenbach, and Meckle have treated on monstrosity, cla ifying its modifications under three heads: the first including cases in which parts of the body are increased in number; the second those where certain organs are deficient; and the third including cases in which size, situation, and structure are concerned. Other writers, such as Geoffrey St. Hilaire {His to ire des Anomalies), have adopted more comprehensive arrangements; arising, however, out of the general subdivision of monsters into simple and compound: the former including all cases in which the elements of a single individual only are concerned; the latter those in which the constituent parts of two or more individuals are united. Simple monsters have again been distributed into three cla es. The first including such varieties of malformation as chiefly affect one organ or system of organs, without materially interfering with any vital function: these anomalies are extremely numerous, and have been further subdivided into cases where size, form, or structure is affected, and those in which the malformation afifects the arrangement, connection, or number of parts. The second cla in this arrangement includes cases of extensive malformation, attended bv great deformity and by disturbance of vital functions. The third cla is limited to malformations of the organs of generation, including among others the various cases miscalled hermaphrodites. The history of individual cases of monstrosity would be here misplaced; several of the most remarkable are detailed in various volumes of the Philosophical Transactions; in the Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society; and in tlie Penny Cycloptsdia, art. " Monster." MONSTERS, or [s. 781]