218 Ulisse Aldrovandi

eels, unfeathered birds, and live mice, and he excreted them all through the anus without any danger to his life.

Many wonders concerning human conditions could be noted here, but for the sake of brevity, I will record only the most significant ones. Schenck observed a perfectly formed fetus in a woman from Sens; many people saw it after it was removed following the mother's death, having been carried in her womb for twenty-eight years and turned into stone-like hardness. Similarly, in 1595, in a thirty-five-year-old woman, the entire uterus was found to be stony and weighed seven pounds, along with a stony bladder and a very hard peritoneum. We also learn from the same Schenck of a woman who for thirteen years carried the skeleton of a dead fetus in her womb, which anyone could feel by touch.

Indeed, according to the same author, there was a woman in the castle of Pomponius in 1540 who, while carrying the skeleton of a dead fetus in her womb, conceived again. When her pains began and her life was in danger, the skeleton was removed through an incision and the womb was repaired; the new child was born alive. Her fertility remained intact, as she gave birth four more times after this treatment. Fernel reports a girl born with joints so loose that she could easily turn her limbs in any direction. But even more astonishing is Hollerius's account of a woman in Paris whose body was soft and flexible, seemingly without solid bones. Columbus relates the exact opposite regarding a man observed in the Hospital for Incurables in Rome; he could move no part of his body except his tongue, eyes, abdomen, and chest, because his entire skeleton from head to foot had become a single solid bone.

Regarding urinary conditions, many record worms being passed in the urine, but what Argenterius observed—a winged dragon emerging through the urinary tract—is rare indeed. Schenck adds to the wonder, having seen a live scorpion ejected with urine. From this, we must conclude that living creatures other than worms are sometimes generated in human bodies. In the past, it happened in Hungary that serpents resembling natural ones were generated in the bellies of many people; thousands died because of this. At this point, I wish to present illustrations of several animals that were generated from rot within human bodies and expelled, some through vomiting, some through the womb, and some through the urine.

Before we conclude these wonders of human conditions, it should be noted that many have been born in the past, and continue to be born today, without an opening (imperforate). Aristotle called these *epinomoi*, and Suessanus, in his commentaries, called this the "marble condition."

Even more remarkable is that some afflicted with this condition have survived. Schenck mentions a girl, the daughter of a certain German Jew, who excreted feces through the vulva; Mercurialis admits to having seen her. Schenck also mentions the son of a stonecutter who was born imperforate and passed stool through his urine. However, because a certain bold surgeon attempted to open the anus with a blade, the boy died from profuse bleeding. When the body was dissected, they found that the rectum had worked its way into the bladder.