Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [96]
7 sons and 9 daughters, of whom one had no issue, 3 died young--the youngest was slain at Newport battle, June 20, 1600. Her grandchildren, in the second generation, were 114; in the third, 228, and in the fourth, 9; so that she could almost say the same as the distich doth of one of the Dalburg family of Basil: 'Rise up, daughter and go to thy daughter, for thy daughter's daughter hath a daughter.'
"In Markshal Church, in Essex, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb is the following inscription: 'Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the daughter and coheir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent, wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, her only husband, who had at her decease, lawfully descended from her, 367 children, 16 of her own body, 114 grandchildren, 228 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth. She lived a most pious life and died at Markshal, in the ninety-third year of her age and the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May 11, 1620.' (From 'Curiosities for the Ingenious,' 1826.) S. S. R."
Animal prolificity though not finding a place in this work, presents some wonderful anomalies.
In illustration we may note the following: In the Illustrated London News, May 11, 1895, is a portrait of "Lady Millard," a fine St. Bernard bitch, the property of Mr. Thorp of Northwold, with her litter of 21 puppies, born on February 9, 1896, their sire being a magnificent dog--"Young York." There is quoted an incredible account of a cow, the property of J. N. Sawyer of Ohio, which gave birth to 56 calves, one of which was fully matured and lived, the others being about the size of kittens; these died, together with the mother. There was a cow in France, in 1871, delivered of 5 calves.
CHAPTER V.
MAJOR TERATA.
Monstrosities have attracted notice from the earliest time, and many of the ancient philosophers made references to them. In mythology we read of Centaurs, impossible beings who had the body and extremities of a beast; the Cyclops, possessed of one enormous eye; or their parallels in Egyptian myths, the men with pectoral eyes,--the creatures "whose heads do beneath their shoulders grow;" and the Fauns, those sylvan deities whose lower extremities bore resemblance to those of a goat. Monsters possessed of two or more heads or double bodies are found in the legends and fairy tales of every nation. Hippocrates, his precursors, Empedocles and Democritus, and Pliny, Aristotle, and Galen, have all described monsters, although in extravagant and ridiculous language.
Ballantyne remarks that the occasional occurrence of double monsters was a fact known to the Hippocratic school, and is indicated by a passage in De morbis muliebribus, in which it is said that labor is gravely interfered with when the infant is dead or apoplectic or double. There is also a reference to monochorionic twins (which are by modern teratologists regarded as monstrosities) in the treatise De Superfoetatione, in which it is stated that "a woman, pregnant with twins, gives birth to them both at the same time, just as she has conceived them; the two infants are in a single chorion."
Ancient Explanations of Monstrosities.--From the time of Galen to the sixteenth century many incredible reports of monsters are seen in medical literature, but without a semblance of scientific truth. There has been little improvement in the mode of explanation of monstrous births until the present century, while in the Middle Ages the superstitions were more ludicrous and observers more ignorant than before the time of Galen. In his able article on the teratologic records of Chaldea, Ballantyne makes the following trite statements: "Credulity and superstition have never been the peculiar possession of the lower types of civilization only, and the special beliefs that have gathered round the occurrence of teratologic phenomena have been common to the cultured Greek and Roman of the past, the ignorant peasant of modern times, and the savage tribes of all ages. Classical writings, the literature of the Middle Ages, and the popular beliefs of the present day
"In Markshal Church, in Essex, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb is the following inscription: 'Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the daughter and coheir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent, wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, her only husband, who had at her decease, lawfully descended from her, 367 children, 16 of her own body, 114 grandchildren, 228 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth. She lived a most pious life and died at Markshal, in the ninety-third year of her age and the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May 11, 1620.' (From 'Curiosities for the Ingenious,' 1826.) S. S. R."
Animal prolificity though not finding a place in this work, presents some wonderful anomalies.
In illustration we may note the following: In the Illustrated London News, May 11, 1895, is a portrait of "Lady Millard," a fine St. Bernard bitch, the property of Mr. Thorp of Northwold, with her litter of 21 puppies, born on February 9, 1896, their sire being a magnificent dog--"Young York." There is quoted an incredible account of a cow, the property of J. N. Sawyer of Ohio, which gave birth to 56 calves, one of which was fully matured and lived, the others being about the size of kittens; these died, together with the mother. There was a cow in France, in 1871, delivered of 5 calves.
CHAPTER V.
MAJOR TERATA.
Monstrosities have attracted notice from the earliest time, and many of the ancient philosophers made references to them. In mythology we read of Centaurs, impossible beings who had the body and extremities of a beast; the Cyclops, possessed of one enormous eye; or their parallels in Egyptian myths, the men with pectoral eyes,--the creatures "whose heads do beneath their shoulders grow;" and the Fauns, those sylvan deities whose lower extremities bore resemblance to those of a goat. Monsters possessed of two or more heads or double bodies are found in the legends and fairy tales of every nation. Hippocrates, his precursors, Empedocles and Democritus, and Pliny, Aristotle, and Galen, have all described monsters, although in extravagant and ridiculous language.
Ballantyne remarks that the occasional occurrence of double monsters was a fact known to the Hippocratic school, and is indicated by a passage in De morbis muliebribus, in which it is said that labor is gravely interfered with when the infant is dead or apoplectic or double. There is also a reference to monochorionic twins (which are by modern teratologists regarded as monstrosities) in the treatise De Superfoetatione, in which it is stated that "a woman, pregnant with twins, gives birth to them both at the same time, just as she has conceived them; the two infants are in a single chorion."
Ancient Explanations of Monstrosities.--From the time of Galen to the sixteenth century many incredible reports of monsters are seen in medical literature, but without a semblance of scientific truth. There has been little improvement in the mode of explanation of monstrous births until the present century, while in the Middle Ages the superstitions were more ludicrous and observers more ignorant than before the time of Galen. In his able article on the teratologic records of Chaldea, Ballantyne makes the following trite statements: "Credulity and superstition have never been the peculiar possession of the lower types of civilization only, and the special beliefs that have gathered round the occurrence of teratologic phenomena have been common to the cultured Greek and Roman of the past, the ignorant peasant of modern times, and the savage tribes of all ages. Classical writings, the literature of the Middle Ages, and the popular beliefs of the present day