Incidence of the so-called thalidomide baby has created a gravest social problem and it is typical of the collateral effect to be derived from various new drugs which have been more or less fashionable in recent years. We were fortunate enough to obtain for our investigatory purposes the jaws from a thalidomide-baby (Contergan baby, to use the term coined by LENZ [1]) which had been born of a woman who had taken a large dosage of thalidomide preparations in the course of her pregnancy. The present paper is concerned with some of its interesting findings pathologically examined.
The authors previously reported on their drawing method of curvilinear contours of various organs by the use of a rectangular coordinates system [1] and this method has been successfully used in establishing the contours of lateral aspect of the mandible in Japanese adults. In connection with their studies, it came to be known to them that in some cases the use of polar coordinates system would better serve purposes than that of rectangular coordinates system. This has led to the devising of a drawing method by means of a polar coordinates system that will be described here with the contours of lateral aspect of the external nose as an illustration.