We find minute descriptions
and portraits of these impossible results of wicked practices in
many of the older medical books. According to Pare there was born
in 1493, as the result of illicit intercourse between a woman and
a dog, a creature resembling in its upper extremities its mother,
while its lower extremities were the exact counterpart of its
canine father. This particular case was believed by Bateman and
others to be a precursor to the murders and wickedness that
followed in the time of Pope Alexander I. Volateranus, Cardani,
and many others cite instances of this kind. Lycosthenes says
that in the year 1110, in the bourg of Liege, there was found a
creature with the head, visage, hands, and feet of a man, and the
rest of the body like that of a pig. Pare quotes this case and
gives an illustration. Rhodiginus mentions a shepherd of Cybare
by the name of Cratain, who had connection with a female goat and
impregnated her, so that she brought forth a beast with a head
resembling that of the father, but with the lower extremities of
a goat. He says that the likeness to the father was so marked
that the head-goat of the herd recognized it, and accordingly
slew the goatherd who had sinned so unnaturally.
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