158 Supplements to the History

As recorded in the second chapter of the *History of Monsters*, the substances that issue from the female womb are classified as either effluxions, moles, miscarriages, perfect fetuses, or, finally, imperfect and monstrous ones. Illustrations of all these types were previously shown, with the exception of the figure for the effluxions, which we provide here (to be placed on page 330). Also depicted here is another humanoid mole, which was missing from that same section.

And although these illustrated effluxions originated from a woman’s womb, this does not preclude them from occasionally appearing in animals. Indeed, Andreas Taurellus of Dijon—a Doctor of Civil Law, a public professor at the University of Bologna, and a man deeply devoted to the refined arts—informed us that during a recent stay in France, he observed an effluxion very similar to those described, which had issued from the womb of a horse. Thus, a man so inquisitive and diligent in such investigations should not be numbered among the merely curious of mortals; rather, in his pursuit, he is highly commended for being *oxytatos*, or most acute, for it is by such means that he is able to probe the underlying causes of nature.

Finally, concerning the first chapter of the *History of Monsters*, which treats hairy people, we must include these notes from Giraldus regarding a monstrously bearded woman. In his *Topography of Ireland*, he recorded that the King of Limerick kept a woman who was fully bearded down to her navel. Moreover, she had a crest of hair like that of a yearling cockerel stretching from her neck down her back. She was not a hermaphrodite, and she was a regular presence at court, where she was met with both the laughter and the astonishment of onlookers.

Another humanoid mole.

Various