Even at the present time the most impossible cases of so-called
'maternal impressions' are widely scattered through medical
literature; and it is not very long since I received a letter
from a distinguished member of the profession asking me whether,
in my opinion, I thought it possible for a woman to give birth to
a dog. Of course, I do not at all mean to infer that teratology
has not made immense advances within recent times, nor do I
suggest that on such subjects the knowledge of the magi can be
compared with that of the average medical student of the present;
but what I wish to emphasize is that, in the literature of
ancient Babylonia, there are indications of an acquaintance with
structural defects and malformations of the human body which will
compare favorably with even the writings of the sixteenth century
of the Christian era."
Many reasons were given for the existence of monsters, and in the
Middle Ages these were as faulty as the descriptions themselves.
They were interpreted as divinations, and were cited as
forebodings and examples of wrath, or even as glorifications of
the Almighty. The semi-human creatures were invented or imagined,
and cited as the results of bestiality and allied forms of sexual
perversion prevalent in those times.
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