CLASS VIII.--The next class includes the parasitic terata,
monsters that consist of one perfect body, complete in every
respect, but from the neighborhood of whose umbilicus depends
some important portion of a second body. Pare, Benivenius, and
Columbus describe adults with acephalous monsters attached to
them. Schenck mentions 13 cases, 3 of which were observed by him.
Aldrovandus shows 3 illustrations under the name of "monstrum
bicorpum monocephalon." Bustorf speaks of a case in which the
nates and lower extremities of one body proceeded out of the
abdomen of the other, which was otherwise perfect. Reichel and
Anderson mention a living parasitic monster, the inferior trunk
of one body proceeding from the pectoral region of the other.
Pare says that there was a man in Paris in 1530, quite forty
years of age, who carried about a parasite without a head, which
hung pendant from his belly. This individual was exhibited and
drew great crowds. Pare appends an illustration, which is,
perhaps, one of the most familiar in all teratology. He also
gives a portrait of a man who had a parasitic head proceeding
from his epigastrium, and who was born in Germany the same year
that peace was made with the Swiss by King Francis.
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