History of Monsters. 467

side was so bent that food could only be introduced into its mouth with difficulty. Its legs were also positioned crosswise, as seen in Figure 16; even if they were pulled apart, they nonetheless spontaneously returned to their original position. This monster lived for some time in Vienna, Austria.

Finally, in the corruption of heads, Nature sometimes does not deform them entirely so as to create the head of a different creature (that is, a beast), as we showed a little while ago; rather, it disfigures them only slightly, so that they represent some rough sketch of a wild animal's maw. Thus, humans are born with their own faces yet reflecting the appearance of a dog, a monkey, an eagle, or similar animals—essentially a human head leaning toward the likeness of a beast. For this reason, according to Paré’s opinion, a woman once gave birth to a fetus with the maw of a lion. More recently, in Perugia—specifically in March of 1626—a boy was born with his limbs correctly formed except for his face. Because of a shaggy forehead, his face resembled that of an owl, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth; the sight of him inspired both horror and wonder.

There have also been boys who came into the world with the appearance of a frog. One example representing them all is an infant described by Paré, born in 1517 to parents of the lowest social standing—specifically Amadeus Perneus and Magdalena Sarbucata—in the forest of Bresse in the parish of Bois-le-Roi, on the road to Fontainebleau. The mother of this monstrous birth, while suffering from a fever, was advised by a certain midwife to bind a live frog to the palm of her hand and keep it there until it died. While in this state, she had intercourse with her husband and conceived a fetus of the form seen in Figure 17. Consequently, Jean Bellanger, a surgeon of the Royal Works who examined this monstrous boy before the officials of the town of Harnoy, believed that the application of the frog to the mother's hand was the cause of the fetus's deformity.

To the aforementioned cases, we add the likeness of a woman found in a public museum who, as far as her face was concerned, resembled a monkey, as Figure 18 demonstrates.

Furthermore, there are some fetuses whose faces are disfigured by various expressions of the eyes and mouth, such as those born with a massive gaping maw, like people screaming horribly. Indeed, in 1578, in Grevesmühlen in the territory of Mecklenburg, as recorded by Schenck, a tailor’s wife gave birth to a male infant. His body was whole and well-formed except for his head, whose natural face was covered by a fleshy membrane. When this was pulled upward, the face and head mimicked a long Turkish cap, and the mouth was seen open in a massive gape, a gesture typically made by those crying out in terror. The fetus lacked a tongue, and the interior of the mouth appeared to be filled with nothing but blood. The eyes were open but lacked pupils; the nostrils imitated the snub nose of a dog. He had a soft neck of unusual length, so that when the neck was held straight, the head necessarily slumped forward, backward, or to either side. Schenck also noticed another remarkable thing about this fetus: its right hand was spread open while the left was closed, contracted as if into a fist. Even if forced open, the fingers would spontaneously close back into a fist.

In a public museum, we also found an illustration of a female fetus with a wide-gaping mouth, nostrils and eyes located almost on the forehead, and hair that appeared to stand up in a cone, as Figure 19 shows.

We believe that what has been related so far concerning the corrupted heads of humans should also be understood to apply to those of beasts, since such great deformity is sometimes observed in the heads of animals that they seem almost foreign to their own species. First, setting aside the four-horned stag said to have been owned by Nicocreon, we shall review the more horrific heads. In 1554, in a village in Pomerania near Rekow and Rago at the mouth of the Oder, according to the account by Lycosthenes, a foal was born with a monstrous and terrifying head. Instead of eyes, it had reddish spots, and it had drooping ears like those of a keen-scented hound, the lower parts of which were fused to the skin. Its mouth was hideous, with lips so swollen that it could not suckle. Moreover, its neck was twisted, winding, and marked with distinct colors as if varied by many collars, with an unkempt mane. It emitted a great neighing sound like an adult horse. Its skin was rough with a shaggy covering, and finally, a sort of crest rose up in place of a tail.