592 Ulysses Aldrovandi

the movements of the infant ceased, and her pains grew milder. The midwives, who were expecting a certain birth, were astonished by all of this.

Overwhelmed by the mockery of this failed pregnancy, the patient remained bedridden for three years, constantly complaining of the tumor, the hardness, and the griping pains in her belly. She also felt a heavy weight that shifted from side to side whenever she moved; because of this, she showed the tumor to various physicians and surgeons for treatment, asserting that she was suffering from some form of sorcery.

After she passed away, physicians and surgeons were summoned. Upon opening the woman’s abdomen, they expected to find a scirrhous tumor, but when the surgeon cut into it with his scalpel, he discovered a monstrous, plaster-like mass. Indeed, the infant, curled into a ball, had turned to stone.

The cause of this petrified fetus can be attributed to an imbalance and a poor disposition of the matter, for this stony fetus could have arisen from no other cause than that which creates stones in the human body. This cause is typically twofold: a thick, dense matter, and excessive heat or cold. Just as heat dissolves thinner parts and turns thicker ones into hard matter, a hard, stony substance likewise forms in the joints of those with gout, which is later expelled through abscesses or removed by surgery. Thus, the fetus petrifying in the womb had no other origin than the matter destined for generation, which was thick, viscous, and earthy. The overly hot temperature of the womb acted upon this matter, dissipating the thinner parts and condensing it into stone. However, it is also possible for an excessively cold condition of the womb to squeeze out the thinner parts, rendering the thicker ones hard, dense, and stony.

ON MONSTERS WITH TAILS

#### Chapter VIII

In the creation of tails in living creatures, Nature sometimes encounters obstacles that force it—as has been explained regarding other body parts—to either produce no tail at all, to add one to a creature where it does not belong, to disfigure one species with the tail of another, to deform them, or finally, to multiply them.

It is well known to everyone that humans lack tails; nonetheless, the English annals recount that children were once born in those regions notable for having tails. However, we believe this should be attributed to a miracle. John Major writes in his *History of the Scots* that Saint Augustine, sent to England by Saint Gregory the Great to spread the Gospel of God, passed through Rochester. The common people there, in mockery, threw fish tails at the holy man. Consequently, from then on, children were born with tails as punishment for that crime. Nevertheless, in these times, tailed humans are no longer born there, as this occurred only for a time and beyond the power of Nature, so that those unbelieving people might place their faith in the Teacher. According to the Jesuit Eusebius, there was also another tailed race in Spain.

But let us set aside these accounts, which do not depend on natural causes at all, so that we may consider natural effects. We recall presenting an illustration of a two-headed, tailed fetus in the third chapter of this history. Furthermore, in the sixth chapter, we offered for inspection an image of an infant with a fish's tail, which might lead us to sing along with Horace: "A woman, beautiful above, ends in a fish." Yet, this poetic verse does not quite reach the truth in the case of the aforementioned fetus, since its upper parts were quite deformed. Schenck also provides an illustration of a child born in Cologne in the year fifteen hundred and ninety-