I’m Beth Lander, the Librarian for the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, home to the
Mütter Museum and the Historical Medical Library. I’d like to take you on a virtual
walkthrough through one of our previous exhibits, Imperfecta.
The main story of Imperfecta examines the shifting perceptions about abnormal human
development, from fear and wonder to curiosity and clinical science, beginning in the sixteenth
century and ending in the nineteenth. The underlying story is about how people communicate
about things we find disturbing or frightening. We begin in the town of Ravenna, Italy, in
1512. On April 11, 1512, French troops captured the city of Ravenna after a major battle with
soldiers of Pope Julius II. Angered by his defeat, the Pope ordered the death by starvation
of a baby who had been born near the city only weeks earlier.
This baby was so deformed that an apothecary (pharmacist) who lived in Florence said, “It
was evident what evil the monster had meant for [Ravenna]! It seems as if some great misfortune
always befalls the city when such things are born.”
The Monster of Ravenna is one of the best known examples in the field of teratology,
which is the study of physiological abnormalities and abnormal functions.
I don’t use the term “monster” lightly. It is a term used by physicians well into
the 20th century to denote a fetus or infant with pronounced developmental anomalies that
are considered grotesque and usually nonviable. The story of the Monster of Ravenna and other
abnormal births were documented in the sixteenth century in two types of texts. The first were
books written by physicians and other healers. The second type are called “prodigy books.”
A prodigy book depicts abnormally formed humans and animals as supernatural portents or omens.
Many prodigy books presented monstrosities as warning signs from God and often used them
as ways to make political, religious, or social statements. Several monsters were so notorious
that they appeared in numerous books. The woodcut used to illustrate the Monster
of Ravenna was reused, repurposed and recut as the image moved across Europe, allowing
people in different areas to interpret their fears in different ways.
One of the prodigy books on display in Imperfecta was Jakob Rüff’s book A cheerful consolation
book on the generation and birth of humans, which was published in 1554. This book was
different from many other popular prodigy books at the time because it was a practical
manual for midwives. It was one of the first prodigy books that considered physical, rather
than just supernatural, causes for monstrous births.
We can also find both supernatural and natural causes for monstrous births in the works of
Ambroise Paré. Pare was a French barber-surgeon, a medical practitioner who, unlike most university
trained physicians at the time, performed surgery, especially during times of war.
Paré’s book, which I will refer to as “The Works,” was published in 1575. This book
has a chapter called “On Monsters,” which combined images of abnormal births and fantastic,
sometimes imaginary, animals. Like Rüff, Paré considered the possible
causes of abnormal births. He listed thirteen causes, including the “smallness of the
womb,” “the glory or wrath of God,” and “the artifice of wicked spiral beggars.”
Among Paré’s thirteen causes were two reasons specific to the mother: the smallness of her
womb, or the “indecent posture” of her body. Many people throughout history believed
that women could give birth to monsters by looking at disturbing images during conception
or having “unwholesome desires” during pregnancy. People also assumed that eating
certain foods, like strawberries, could cause birthmarks.
These beliefs motivated women to follow rituals and health regimens to promote the birth of
a healthy child, often assisted by a midwife. Like today, midwives’ treatments were often
holistic in nature. One treatment used to promote healthy babies and births included
soaking Bible verses in water that would then be given to the mother to drink.
Midwives referenced herbals, books containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually
with information on their medicinal properties, to make drinks and medicines for women during
pregnancy. Midwives also delivered children, and were trained to use obstetric tools in
difficult births. During the seventeenth century, attitudes
toward abnormal births began to change. They began to be perceived not just as omens, but
also as objects of curiosity. Fortunio Liceti, an Italian physician who
was born in 1577, was one of the first authors to present monsters as lusus naturae or “freaks
of nature,” instead of symbols of impending doom or the influence of God. Liceti believed
that monsters were evidence of nature’s ability to create wondrous things even when
using damaged material. This perspective began to open the door for a more scientific study
of monsters. Curiosity continued to drive physicians to
search for natural causes of physical anomalies.
One of the most fascinating stories in Imperfecta is the ‘Hühnermensch,” which, translated
from the German, means “chicken man.” The Hühnermensch was born in a small town
near Leipzig, Germany, in 1735, to a 28 year old woman, Johanna Schmeid. Unlike her three
previous healthy children, her fourth was stillborn and had numerous physical anomalies:
a comb-like structure on the head; large, round eyes; and hands with lengthy fingers
and “claws exactly like those of a chicken.” The attending physician, Gottlieb Friderici,
performed an autopsy and published his findings in the essay The rarest of human monsters.
Friderici determined that the deformities were the result of crossbreeding between a
human and a rooster. Later examinations of the specimen indicate that the child was born
with a severe form of Roberts Syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes deformed limbs
and face. The start of the 19th century led to some
of the first detailed scientific studies of monstrous births. Adolph Wilhelm Otto, who
was born in 1786, was the Professor of Anatomy and Director of the Anatomical Museum in Breslau.
Otto was a specialist in the newly emerging field of teratology. He published 600 Anatomic
Descriptions of Monsters in 1841, an atlas that gained popularity outside the field of
teratology. The atlas contained detailed descriptions, including notes on internal anatomy compiled
during complete dissections of specimens. Barton Cooke Hirst, who was a fellow of the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the parent institution of the Mutter Museum, co-published
an atlas in 1891 titled Human Monstrosities, one of the first English-language books to
classify monsters. Hirst was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical
school. His atlas classified anomalies found only in stillborn or aborted fetuses.
The 19th century also saw the monetization of disability through freak shows and circuses.
One of the most famous examples were the conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, whose death cast
and liver are on display here at the Mütter Museum.
Unlike many differently abled people who were taken advantage of at the time, Chang and
Eng were able to manage their own careers after their 18th birthday. Chang and Eng were
successful until the end of the American Civil War, when they nearly went bankrupt. They
accepted an offer from P.T. Barnum to appear at his American Museum. They died in 1874,
and their bodies were autopsied at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Millie and Christine McKoy were conjoined twins who were not able to enjoy the same
agency as the Bunkers. Known as the "Carolina Twins," the McKoys were born into slavery
in 1851 in North Carolina. They struggled to gain control over their finances, as well
as how they were exhibited in public. They died of tuberculosis in 1912.
Today, news about abnormal births travels via social media and television rather than
woodcuts used to illustrate books. When Zika virus became prevalent in 2013, images of
babies born with microcephaly flooded media, media that was also used to educate people
how to avoid being infected. Modern medicine has proven that genetic mutations
and exposure to toxins are to blame for abnormal births, not divine influence. However, simply
because something – such as abnormal human development – has been studied and classified
by medical science, does not mean that it cannot touch the deepest part of our psyche,
making us question what it means to be imperfect. If you’d like to explore some of the topics
presented in Imperfecta in more in-depth, check out our digital exhibit, Further into
Imperfecta, at the link shown here.