Marshall mentions a boy of sixteen in whom the right half of the scrotum was empty, although the left was of normal size and contained a testicle. On close examination another testicle was found in the perineum; the boy said that while running he fell down, four years before, and on getting up suffered great pain in the groin, and this pain recurred after exertion. This testicle was removed successfully to the scrotum. Horsley collected 20 instances of operators who made a similar attempt, Annandale being the first one; his success was likely due to antisepsis, as previously the testicles had always sloughed. There is a record of a dog remarkable for its salacity who had two testicles in the scrotum and one in the abdomen; some of the older authors often indulged in playful humor on this subject.
Brown describes a child with a swelling in the perineum both painful and elastic to the touch. The child cried if pressure was applied to the tumor and there was every evidence that the tumor was a testicle. Hutcheson, quoted by Russell, has given a curious case in an English seaman who, as was the custom at that time, was impressed into service by H.M.S. Druid in 1807 from a trading ship off the coast of Africa. The man said he had been examined by dozens of ship-surgeons, but was invariably rejected on account of rupture in both groins. The scrotum was found to be an empty bag, and close examination showed that the testicles occupied the seats of the supposed rupture. As soon as the discovery was made the man became unnerved and agitated, and on re-examining the parts the testicles were found in the scrotum. When he found that there was no chance for escape he acknowledged that he was an impostor and gave an exhibition in which, with incredible facility, he pulled both testes up from the bottom of the scrotum to the external abdominal ring. At the word of command he could pull up one testicle, then another, and let them drop simultaneously; he performed other like feats so rapidly that the movements could not be distinguished.
In this connection Russell speaks of a man whose testicle was elevated every time the east wind blew, which caused him a sense of languor and relaxation; the same author describes a man whose testicles ascended into the inguinal canal every time he was in the company of women.
Inversion of the testicle is of several varieties and quite rare, it has been recognized by Sir Astley Cooper, Boyer, Maisonneuve, Royet, and other writers.
The anomalies of the vas deferens and seminal vesicles are of little interest and will be passed with mention of the case of Weber, who found the seminal vesicles double; a similar conformation has been seen in hermaphrodites.
CHAPTER VII.
ANOMALIES OF STATURE, SIZE, AND DEVELOPMENT.
Giants.—The fables of mythology contain accounts of horrible monsters, terrible in ferocity, whose mission was the destruction of the life of the individuals unfortunate enough to come into their domains. The ogres known as the Cyclops, and the fierce anthropophages, called Lestrygons, of Sicily, who were neighbors of the Cyclops, are pictured in detail in the "Odyssey" of Homer. Nearly all the nations of the earth have their fairy tales or superstitions of monstrous beings inhabiting some forest, mountain, or cave; and pages have been written in the heroic poems of all languages describing battles between these monsters and men with superhuman courage, in which the giant finally succumbs.
The word giant is derived indirectly from the old English word "geant," which in its turn came from the French of the conquering Normans. It is of Greek derivation, "gigas", or the Latin, "gigas." The Hebrew parallel is "nophel," or plural, "nephilim."