LIVING EMBRYO.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 February 1926, Page 7

LIVING EMBRYO.

YOUNG WOMAN’S REMARKABLE AFFLICTION. Unique and amazing are the facts involved in tile past history of a. young married 'woman now. an inmate at the Alfred Hospital. Melbourne, says an article in the Melbourne “ Morning Post.” During the past three years operation haS succeeded operation in a skilful surgical battle to Temove parts of an embryo that should have been horn, with her. So far seventeen operations have proved successful in keeping her from being destroyed by this vagary of Nature. Nevertheless, the surgeon’s fight is not quite over. For more than twenty years, quite unsuspected, she had been the host for this embryo Suddenly it awoke from its long rest, and broke through the surface of the skin of her chest. At first it was thought to be merely a'small malignant growth. But in time hair, tissue, sebaceous glands, and other equally astonishing growths made their appearance. They left no room for doubt that they were part of an embryo that had been grown over and had remained suppressed through the years in its development and growth Four years ago she married. Until quite recently she was a pretty and robust young woman. To all intqnts and purposes she outwardly looked a picture of health. The renowned Siamese twins were but a variation of the same phenomenon. They developed equally. Both grew with the same rate of progress. This was not so in the Alfred Hospital case. While one twin went to sleep in an embryonical rest of twenty years, the other grew up to womanhood at a normal rate, and enveloped it.