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Your question once again assumes “either/or.” Think

release time：2023-12-04 08:30:50 source：Vivid in the ear network author：{typename type="name"/}

Before ending these preliminary remarks, there might be mentioned the marine monsters, such as mermaids, sea-serpents, and the like, which from time to time have been reported; even at the present day there are people who devoutly believe that they have seen horrible and impossible demons in the sea. Pare describes and pictures a monster, at Rome, on November 3, 1520, with the upper portion of a child apparently about five or six years old, and the lower part and ears of a fish-like animal. He also pictures a sea-devil in the same chapter, together with other gruesome examples of the power of imagination.

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Early Teratology.--Besides such cases as the foregoing, we find the medieval writers report likely instances of terata, as, for instance, Rhodiginus, who speaks of a monster in Italy with two heads and two bodies; Lycosthenes saw a double monster, both components of which slept at the same time; he also says this creature took its food and drink simultaneously in its two mouths. Even Saint Augustine says that he knew of a child born in the Orient who, from the belly up, was in all parts double.

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The first evidences of a step toward classification and definite reasoning in regard to the causation of monstrosities were evinced by Ambroise Pare in the sixteenth century, and though his ideas are crude and some of his phenomena impossible, yet many of his facts and arguments are worthy of consideration. Pare attributed the cause of anomalies of excess to an excessive quantity of semen, and anomalies of default to deficiency of the same fluid. He has collected many instances of double terata from reliable sources, but has interspersed his collection with accounts of some hideous and impossible creatures, such as are illustrated in the accompanying figure, which shows a creature that was born shortly after a battle of Louis XII, in 1512; it had the wings, crest, and lower extremity of a bird and a human head and trunk; besides, it was an hermaphrodite, and had an extra eye in the knee. Another illustration represents a monstrous head found in an egg, said to have been sent for examination to King Charles at Metz in 1569. It represented the face and visage of a man, with small living serpents taking the place of beard and hair. So credulous were people at this time that even a man so well informed as Pare believed in the possibility of these last two, or at least represented them as facts. At this time were also reported double hermaphroditic terata, seemingly without latter-day analogues. Rhodiginus speaks of a two-headed monster born in Ferrari, Italy, in 1540, well formed, and with two sets of genitals, one male and the other female. Pare gives a picture of twins, born near Heidelberg in 1486, which had double bodies joined back to back; one of the twins had the aspect of a female and the other of a male, though both had two sets of genitals.

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Scientific Teratology.--About the first half of the eighteenth century what might be called the positive period of teratology begins. Following the advent of this era come Mery, Duverney, Winslow, Lemery, and Littre. In their works true and concise descriptions are given and violent attacks are made against the ancient beliefs and prejudices. From the beginning of the second half of the last century to the present time may be termed the scientific epoch of teratology. We can almost with a certainty start this era with the names of Haller, Morgagni, Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, and Meckel, who adduced the explanations asked for by Harvey and Wolff. From the appearance of the treatise by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, teratology has made enormous strides, and is to-day well on the road to becoming a science. Hand in hand with embryology it has been the subject of much investigation in this century, and to enumerate the workers of the present day who have helped to bring about scientific progress would be a task of many pages. Even in the artificial production of monsters much has been done, and a glance at the work of Dareste well repays the trouble. Essays on teratogenesis, with reference to batrachians, have been offered by Lombardini; and by Lereboullet and Knoch with reference to fishes. Foll and Warynski have reported their success in obtaining visceral inversion, and even this branch of the subject promises to become scientific.

Terata are seen in the lower animals and always excite interest. Pare gives the history of a sheep with three heads, born in 1577; the central head was larger than the other two, as shown in the accompanying illustration. Many of the Museums of Natural History contain evidences of animal terata. At Hallae is a two-headed mouse; the Conant Museum in Maine contains the skeleton of an adult sheep with two heads; there was an account of a two-headed pigeon published in France in 1734; Leidy found a two-headed snake in a field near Philadelphia; Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Conant both found similar creatures, and there is one in the Museum at Harvard; Wyman saw a living double-headed snake in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1853, and many parallel instances are on record.

Classification.--We shall attempt no scientific discussion of the causation or embryologic derivation of the monster, contenting ourselves with simple history and description, adding any associate facts of interest that may be suggested. For further information, the reader is referred to the authors cited or to any of the standard treatises on teratology.

Many classifications of terata have been offered, and each possesses some advantage. The modern reader is referred to the modification of the grouping of Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire given by Hirst and Piersol, or those of Blanc and Guinard. For convenience, we have adopted the following classification, which will include only those monsters that have LIVED AFTER BIRTH, and who have attracted general notice or attained some fame in their time, as attested by accounts in contemporary literature.

CLASS 1.--Union of several fetuses. CLASS 2.--Union of two distinct fetuses by a connecting band. CLASS 3.--Union of two distinct fetuses by an osseous junction of the cranial bones. CLASS 4.--Union of two distinct fetuses in which one or more parts are eliminated by the junction. CLASS 5.--Fusion of two fetuses by a bony union of the ischii. CLASS 6.--Fusion of two fetuses below the umbilicus into a common lower extremity. CLASS 7.--Bicephalic monsters. CLASS 8.--Parasitic monsters. CLASS 9.--Monsters with a single body and double lower extremities. CLASS 10.--Diphallic terata. CLASS 11.--Fetus in fetu, and dermoid cysts. CLASS 12.--Hermaphrodites.

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