Chapter V

THE VAGARIES OF NATURE, IN THE BIRTHS OF MONSTERS.

The pleasing anticipations of the wedded pair are sometimes disappointed and seriously blighted by the birth of a deformed and malformed offspring. Sometimes the child is born with some one or more of the usual members of the body deficient; at others there are births of children possessed with more than the usual members of the body; and in various ways the eccentricities of nature are displayed in the production of the fruits of the womb contrary to the usual construction of the human frame.

It would be presumptuous in any finite creature to attempt to give a clear and uncontrovertible reason for these monstrous births. Suffice it to say, that several have at various times been recorded in history; a few of those we shall now introduce to the notice of the reader.

We are told by old historians of a monster which was born at Ravenna, in Italy, about the year 1512, which had wings instead of arms; and some peculiar marks on its body. We present the following figure of this singular creature.

Another monster was born about the year 1603, which from the account handed down to us, was from the navel upwards like a woman, and the lower parts like those of a beast. The following figure of this curious creature is taken from an ancient record of the subject. This monster appears to approach nearer to the figure of the fabled satyrs than any we have before seen, and may probably have given rise to those fabled monsters.

Where children thus are born with hairy coats,
Heaven’s wrath unto the kingdom it denotes.
]

Another monster was produced, representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair like a beast. That which rendered it more frightful, was, that its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the mouth should have been; and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called Arles, in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all who beheld it. It was looked upon by the superstitious as a forerunner of those desolations which soon afterwards happened to that unhappy kingdom, where men to each other, were more like beasts than human creatures. The foregoing engraving from an old print—with two lines attached—give a clearer idea of the monster than any description of ours.

In the year 1581, a monster was born at Nazara, which had four arms and four legs, of a similar form to the figure above. Whether this monster lived for any length of time after its birth, or whether it perished soon after, we have no reliable account on which to rest our conclusions. There is no doubt but that many such unnatural births would be concealed: for the doctors of a former age would consider themselves justified in putting an end to the existence of such monsters. With regard to the formation of the child in this case, so far as can be gathered from the account of it, there was nothing to prevent it living: its vital organs were single, it was only the arms and legs that were double.

In the reign of Henry III. of England, there was a woman delivered of a child, having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the back; the heads were so placed, that they looked contrary ways; each had two distinct arms and hands; they would both laugh, both speak, and both cry, and be hungry together; sometimes the one would speak, and the other would keep silent, and sometimes both speak together. It lived several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one, (for there was no separating them), till it fainted with the burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.

In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a child was born which had two heads and four arms, seeming like two girls joined together, having two of her arms lifted up between and above their heads: the thighs being placed as it were across one another, according to the following figure. How long they lived is not known; but, probably, life would not be sustained for any length of time; for, even supposing the vital organs were unaffected, by the curious junction of the two bodies, the singular position of the limbs would, to some extent, interfere with the free actions of life, as well as produce misery to the creature all its days. These vagaries of nature happily seldom occur, and when they do, the friendly stroke of death gives relief.

The following figure shows that though some of the members of the body may be wanting, yet they are commonly supplied by others—by members which serve the same purpose as those which are deficient.

Without doubt some of the stories of monsters are fabulous, but we hesitate not to state that we believe many of them to be true. Nearly every accoucheur has, at some time or other, had cases when they have had to assist in bringing into the world specimens of the freaks of nature, either deficient of their natural properties, or a superabundance of them. It frequently happens that these prodigies exist but for a short time—death speedily putting an end to what must otherwise be a miserable existence, and little is said about them. The surgical museums in our country contain sufficient proof of the birth of monsters: and there is no denying the fact, that there are cases in which people are born into the world, and from certain peculiarities in their structure have been exhibited to the public as monsters.