582 Ulisse Aldrovandi
...shaggy rugs should be avoided, in which lower-class women very often lie, since the frequent sight of hair can imprint a similar form upon the tender fetus.
Appendages of Monstrous Skin
Nature, out of an abundance of waste material and a strong formative power, creates various appendages of flesh and skin in fetuses—representing helmets, cloaks, and hoods—along with other monstrous skin protuberances. These are later integrated from fleshy and membranous substances. We conclude that this arises from an excess of female waste matter, since women who give birth to such a fetus emit almost no watery discharge or mucus. Furthermore, infants wrapped in these membranous substances incur an evident danger of death during birth unless they are freed from such membranes as quickly as possible.
On this subject, Levinus Lemnius recorded that infants are sometimes born monstrously into the living air with their heads covered by a certain membranous band that mimics a monk's hood. For this reason, according to Guainerio, this membranous covering of the fetus has sometimes led husbands to suspect adultery.
Furthermore, midwives and other bedside women are accustomed to foretelling good fortune from reddish membranous bands and ill fortune from blackish ones, as Levinus relates. They say the French proverb "Il est nay coiffe"—meaning "he is born hooded"—arose from this, a saying used for one for whom everything turns out according to his wishes. Consequently, in some nations, midwives sell these membranous bands and "helmets" of fetuses at a high price to lawyers, who believe they will be aided by them. Indeed, the ancients once attributed an admirable virtue to them, as they recorded that Marcus Antonius was famous for such a hood. Thus, an infant wearing such a helmet, along with the same membrane separated from the fetus, is shown in Figure I.
Furthermore, as Lycosthenes writes from the notes of Fincelius, in the year 1553 in the city of Bremopyrgus in the March, an infant is said to have been born so clothed in a surrounding, loose, and membranous mass of flesh that it seemed covered by a German military cloak. We call this form of garment a "pallium" or cloak. The likeness of this infant is shown in Figure II.
In addition, countless other appendages and protuberances of flesh representing the forms of other things have been observed in fetuses. Schenck mentions a charming and elegant infant who had an appendage like a sausage growing above the buttocks. He also records a small boy born in Cologne in the year 1597, quite beautiful in appearance, except that he had brought from his mother’s womb two continuous appendages of flesh, like two eggs, upon his neck.
Similarly, among the Subalpines, as reported by Ambroise Paré, in the town of Chieri two miles from Turin, on the seventeenth day of January in the year 1578, an honorable woman gave birth to a fetus covered with five horns like those of a ram. Furthermore, from the top of the forehead to the back of the head and over almost the entire back, the infant bore a long appendage of flesh mimicking a woman's hood; then, around the neck, another fleshy substance was wound like the collar of a shirt. Moreover, the fingers of the hands were hooked, and the hamstrings were constricted at the knees. The right leg and foot were reddish, while the rest of the body was a dark, brownish-red color. This fetus came into the light with a great cry; when it was brought to the Prince of the Subalpines, as Paré testifies, there were various judgments from both the courtiers and others. The likeness of the monster is shown in image III.
Additionally, an infant was born in Stettin in the year 1554 who had a mass of flesh on the crown of the head presenting the image of a tortoise, and a white fleshy tail on the neck like the tail of a mouse; the reader will find the image of this in the third chapter of this History.