History of Monsters. 600 ...And the infant terrified its own mother.

indeed, the toad must have terrified the mother even more—the one born of a woman as recorded by Weinrich, following the account in Bodin’s *On the Demon-Mania of Sorcerers*. In that work, a woman at Laon was said to have given birth to a toad. The midwife and the others present were seized with a certain horror, for the toad was unlike any other; it was later brought to the Governor’s house, where many people saw it.

Lycosthenes also reports that in the year of our salvation 1553, in a certain Thuringian village, a woman gave birth to a tailed toad, as seen in the illustration.

Yet even before this, in the year 1531, according to the same author, a woman in Augsburg gave birth to a two-legged serpent and a piglet.

What we have observed regarding unusual births in the human race may also be considered in animals. According to Schenck, in the Senigallia region of Picenum, a cow produced a serpent of remarkable size, with a thick head, a long neck, and a body like a dog's, though more rounded. When the cow turned and looked at what she had birthed, she let out a great lowing as if terrified. Meanwhile, the serpent wrapped its tail around the cow's hind legs and put its mouth to her udders, sucking until the milk was gone, before fleeing into the nearby woods. The udders and the parts of the legs touched by the serpent's tail remained black and scorched. The shepherds—for the cow was part of a herd—swore they saw this, and even reported that the same cow gave birth to a normal calf shortly thereafter.

Bauhin, in his appendix to Rousset, also records a story communicated to him by the distinguished Felix Plater regarding a cow that birthed a skeleton along with a calf. Because the cow had been hindered by a difficult labor and could not deliver her first fetus, she suffered no further illness and conceived again after some time. When her term was finished, she gave birth to a living calf and the skeleton of the previous one. It is truly marvelous that the cow could endure the decay of the fetus and conceive anew while retaining the bones of the first. However, this monster does not seem entirely unlike its parent; for although it was not a whole calf, the bones were nonetheless said to be those of a calf.

But truly astonishing and utterly unlike its mother was the monster born to a cow in the Spanish city of Burgos in the year 1597, as published by Johann Georg Schenck. There, a cow is recorded to have birthed human male and female fetuses, each distinct with properly formed limbs. This caused the greatest amazement and fear in everyone; consequently, the Archbishop of that place refused to allow such offspring to be admitted to the font of holy baptism.

Furthermore, Louis Celleius writes (as cited by Paré) that he read in a reputable author that a sheep once gave birth to a lion—an animal of a completely different and hostile nature. Finally, Giambattista della Porta declared in his *Natural Magic* that he saw a dog in Rome bred from a wolf. This birth does not seem particularly miraculous, as there is no great difference between a wolf and a dog; though they are indeed different species, they are the kind that produce "bigeneric" or hybrid offspring.

In seeking the causes of these monsters, if we consult Caelius Aurelianus, he and Platearius have recorded that women sometimes birth toads and other creatures of this sort along with a human fetus, though they do not assign a cause for such a monstrous conception. Platearius teaches that the remedies recommended to provoke the menses also expel what he calls the "Toad Brother" of the Salernitans—just as others label the lizard the "Lombard Brother." This is because women from Salerno were said to often birth toads, and those from Lombardy lizards, alongside their offspring. For this reason, at the beginning of conception, Salernitan women drink the juice of celery and leeks to kill such animals before the human fetus quickens. Otherwise, concerning the remedies for expelling or killing such beasts in the womb, one should read the verses written about the springs of Spa, which run as follows:

It calls forth, therefore, those female monsters long Suppressed, and checks them when they flow in excess