# History of Monsters. 503

Furthermore, just as Nature sometimes forms a fetus with fewer fingers, she similarly occasionally produces superfluous ones. This is because extra-growths, known as *paraphyses*, are sometimes observed on the hands and feet—meaning an extra digit is born on the hand or foot—due to an abundance of matter. Indeed, individuals have been seen with six fingers on each hand, with the sixth located between the ring finger and the little finger; it was mobile and functional, though the hand itself was of remarkable width. Although Paulus Aegineta wrote that such extra fingers are sometimes entirely fleshy, malformed, or even immobile, Hali Rodoham seems to confirm this view in his commentaries on Galen’s *Art of Medicine*, where he reports having seen a sixth finger added many times.

This was also the teaching of Pliny and Petrus Crinitus, who recorded that the daughters of M. Coriatius had six fingers on their hands; for this reason, they were called "six-fingered." Similarly, Volcacius, a very famous man in the poetic arts, was called "six-fingered" for the same reason, as Nature had added a sixth finger to his hands.

Schenchius also mentions an honorable matron with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot who later gave birth to a daughter with the same number of digits. It also happened that during the battles at Gath, a man was observed with six very long fingers on each hand, as Schenchius records.

In the year 1556, Lycosthenes saw a farmer in Basel with six fingers of proper size and proportion on each hand. This is confirmed by another observation by Valeriola, who in July 1561 at Arles met a fifteen-year-old youth who bore six fingers on each hand and seven complete toes on each foot.

Finally, Schenchius adds that he knew a young man who had the index finger of his left hand split into three points, which skillfully represented three little fingers. We also saw a certain man of the lowest social class in Bologna with a sixth finger between the ring and little finger; it was mobile and suited for all uses, as his hands were characterized by their remarkable width.

Thus, Nature not only errs in the reduction or increase of fingers, but also disfigures the hand for other reasons, so that they appear to belong to a beast rather than a human. This was evident in a fetus born in Germany near Laufenburg, a town on the borders of Switzerland by the Rhine river, in the year 1274; according to Lycosthenes, it had the hands and feet of a goose, as seen in illustration VII. Recently, in the year 1638, in the territory of Reggio, reliable men reported to us a monster born with similar hands and feet.

In inquiring into the causes of the monsters described in this section, we shall proceed in reverse order: first, we will assign the causes of the last monster, and then we will reflect on the others. Since the monstrous child depicted last has the hands and feet of another animal species, we conclude it was formed from different species of animals; therefore, we must turn to the causes of such monsters. The first of these is a weakness of the generative power; for when this power languishes in one or more portions of the seed, a properly determined part cannot emerge. This is unless we wish to assert that the power of the seed sometimes degenerates into a foreign nature, and when it degenerates, parts of the monstrous birth are born misshapen, as in the hands or feet; thus the shape of the feet reflects the form of the feet of a goose or a calf.

Next, the material principle of the fetus must be counted among these causes: since it is not perfectly disposed to receive the form of human hands or feet, it instead takes on the figure of another animal species, and thus goose-like or donkey-like feet easily result.

Furthermore, putting aside defects of the nourishing power and the food, as well as disease—all of which can transfigure parts of the fetus into a foreign nature—we come to the imagination, which works in the parents (and especially in the mother carrying the womb) such that the mark of a thing she desired is imprinted on the offspring. Therefore, if she greedily craves the feet of a calf