Observations on the Experimental Production of Malformations of the Central Nervous System*

In utero nature versus nurture

“…By 1960, those of Warkany and Wilson at Cincinnati (Kalter and Warkany 1959;Wilson 1959), Giroud and Tuchmann-Duplessis in Paris and that of Millen and Woollam at Cambridge (Millen and Woollam 1959;Woollam 1958Woollam , 1964Woollam , 1978Woollam , 1979Woollam , 1980 had already shown that a large number of physical and chemical agents, including well known drugs, were capable of causing deleterious effects to the mammalian embryo when applied to the dam during pregnancy. To give but one example, it was demonstrated that hypovitaminosis-A in the dam caused a severe incidence of hydrocephalus in the pre-natal rabbit (Woollam and Millen 1956;Millen and Woollam 1959). This was only one of a number of agents which were shown to have teratogenic effects.…”

Anencephaly: A Review

“…The cranial defect may continue as an open spinal cord in the cervical region and there is an associated spina bifida in between 9 and 30 per cent of cases (Record and McKeown 1949). Other associated anomalies include cyclopia (Ballantyne 1904, Andersen et al 1967, Barsky and Bebin 1967, cleft palate, defects of the abdominal wall and diaphragm, extra limbs, and visceral anomalies (Dodds and DeAngelis 1937, Angevine 1938, Millen and Wollam 1959. turbances affect the embryonic development of the spinal column, the base of the skull and the vertebral axis are abnormal.…”