History of Monsters. 585

In this section, we must also mention a small Indian man who had a fleshy substance hanging from his chest. While passing through Bologna in 1592, he was brought to the distinguished Ulisse Aldrovandi as a marvel. He was of a stature of seven spans, and between his mouth and right ear, he had a double mass of flesh hanging down toward his chest; the one closer to his mouth was shorter than the other, which was attached to his ear. Similarly, loose flesh of the same kind fell over his shoulder and was covered in a certain fine down, just like the others. Under his chin and near the start of the thorax, another very large and wide fleshy mass emerged; it initially covered his shoulder and hung downward, extending across nearly his entire belly, then widening from the breast to the armpit. This fleshy mass was half a finger thick and could be lifted up by hand, as it was attached to the skin only at its point of origin. Furthermore, the part of the body covered by this fleshy and membrane-like material felt remarkably warm; it was therefore believed that the stomach's digestion could be aided by this heat. This marvelous little man is shown in Figure IV.

Recently, in the city of Lisbon, the ancient seat of the Portuguese kings, in the year of our Lord 1638, an "armed" infant was born to respectable parents. Various appendages of skin and flesh, by virtue of their shape, represented the defensive armor that men usually wear when preparing for war; indeed, he was even "helmeted" and "greaved" with this same material, which filled all who saw him with great wonder.

Furthermore, at various times, boys have been born with shapeless appendages of flesh, as we observed in the case of the boy born in Freiburg in 1550. He had a revolting face and a hard, fleshy mass on both his forehead and the back of his head; the illustration for this should be sought in the third chapter of this History.

Likewise, in the year 1608 in Haguenau, Alsace, as reported by Schenck, a male infant was born perfectly formed except for his upper lip, in the gap of which a small piece of flesh had grown like a proboscis. Similarly, in September 1593, a boy was born with a portion of flesh around his neck and another fleshy mass on top of his head. In Zurich, a hermaphrodite was also born in 1519 who had a red mass of flesh around the navel.

Moreover, it should be noted that sometimes these skin appendages appear even in the offspring of beasts. Indeed, in 1551, as Lycosthenes records, a six-footed calf was born in a village in Thuringia with a mass of flesh hanging from its sides.

Nor should it be doubted that all these foul skin appendages are generated from the waste or residue of seminal matter. These later take on various shapes according to the different disposition of the material, as was explained a little earlier.