The History of Monsters. 495

# HAND DEFECTS and the Formation of Fingers

It should come as no surprise if we do not include many more examples of monstrous hands than we do of arms, since these parts are so closely joined that authors frequently use one term for the other. It is a certain fact that historians, when describing a fetus without an arm, have declared it born without a hand; conversely, they have reported a monster missing only a hand as lacking an arm. For instance, Lycosthenes recorded in his *Chronicles* that in the year of the world 3774, a boy was born in Picenum with truncated hands. Hali Rodoham, in his commentaries on Galen’s *Art of Medicine*, testifies to having seen a living man without hands, though in that case, the arms were missing along with the hands.

Similarly, in the year of the world 3792, a one-handed boy was seen in Arezzo—if the truth is to be found in these histories. Likewise, in Rome in the year 3872, a maidservant gave birth to a boy missing one hand. Julius Obsequens also mentions a girl born without a hand in Privernum.

Schenckius, in his *Observations*, describes a girl whose hands were truncated, not from birth, but because they had fallen off due to the violence of a disease, just as if they had been amputated with a blade. Since her torso remained unharmed, she used to seek alms in the streets. Jacobus Rueff, in his work *On the Conception and Generation of Man*, testifies to observing an infant with mutilated hands from birth, even though the rest of the body’s form was correct and perfect; he attributed the cause of this monstrous birth to "imperfect seed." The likeness of this child is shown in Figure I.

Levinus Lemnius admits to observing a girl with a truncated hand and a certain tumor where the hand ought to have emerged. Her parents very willingly allowed him to examine her; by touch, Levinus discovered joints within that tumor that should have broken through by nature's gift but were instead convoluted and turned back on themselves, so that they showed no sign of fingers. All the parts of the hand that usually unfold and fold remained hidden at the very start of generation. Having noticed this, he declared it an error and defect contracted by nature because the "formative faculty," which serves the procreation of offspring, was hindered by some impediment from perfecting the joints and extending them into a wide and proper hand.

For the mother of this girl suffered from a hardening of the spleen. Since female fetuses lingering in the maternal womb tend to lean toward the left side, where the spleen resides, Levinus conjectured that the damaged hand acquired its shapeless and unseemly form because of the condition or tumor of this organ, to which the monstrous hand adhered as if to a reef.

Just as Nature, as has been related so far, fails to perform its functions in forming the hands of fetuses when hindered, it is conversely stimulated by other causes to multiply the fingers of the hands and feet in some offspring. Sometimes an infant appears to carry double hands on each arm and double feet on each leg.

Jacobus Rueff describes a similar boy in his work *On the Conception and Generation of Man*, who was brought into the light with doubled hands and toes, while the other limbs were correctly formed, as shown in Figure II.

Furthermore, Julius Obsequens records a four-handed boy born in the year of the world 3830. Recently, in Terracina, many people saw and marveled at a four-handed fetus.