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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.