REMARKABLE CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1759, 28 May 1906, Page 2

REMARKABLE CASE.

ANATOMICAL PECULIARITIES.

(Pst Press Association.) Christchurch, Saturday.

A Pr#3s reporter brought under the notice of looal dootors an sccouot taken from tue Ashburton Guardian of a post* mortem examination of the body of a young man, in which the organic sy.etem of toe deoeased was found to bo “ an exact transposition of the orthodox human construction in other words, the heart and spleen, wbioh are usually found on the left side of the body, were in this oase on the right side. The liver, on the other hand, be ng, oontrary to the usual custom, on tho left side.

The Ohiistchurch dootors who .vyere seen about this remaikable case were all agreed that the transposition of vieoera has not the slightest effeot upon the health or longevity of the sabjeot in wbioh it ocours, and, in fact, a man might go through a long life without ever being aware that his viscera were transposed, eo little do pe.ople trouble about their .anatomical peculiarities The . ocourrenoe of transposed viscera is, of course, very rare. It is, of couree, a freak of nature. Why it ocours cannot be explained. The fact ia obvious, but the reason unfathomable. "We cannot explain these things,’’ said one dootor. “We can only note them an a matter of fact. Is it not a rather won derful thing that the heart and spleen aro always on the left side of the body ? Tho position of the visoera is determined in a twist taken by the foetus in Jhe course of development. lu the overwhelming majority of oases the twist ocours in onu direction. Ip about one case in a thousand the'twist is in the opposite anil the vieoera are transposed. Why tho twist occasionally reverses is a mystery. We are quite unable to trace the oasnal links leading to such a phenomenon in thu present state of onr knowledge.”