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Monstrous birth
A monstrous birth, variously defined in history, is a birth in which a defect of some sort renders the animal or human child monstrous. Such births were often taken as omens, signs of God, or moral warnings, but besides these supernatural or religious explanations, medical explanations were also given, in which often the mother's state of mind or her sexual behavior was responsible for the deformed fetus. In early and medieval Christianity, monstrous births posed difficult theological problems about humanity and salvation; in the early modern period the interest shifted toward scientific inquiry.
==Overview==
An early reference to monstrous birth is found in the apocalyptic biblical text 2 Esdras, where it is linked to menstruation: "women in their uncleanness will bear monsters."〔Campbell 19.〕 Monstrous births are often placed in a religious context and interpreted as signs and symbols, as is evidenced in the 1493 ''Nuremberg Chronicle''. According to David Hume's "The Natural History of Religion", they are among the first signs that arouse the barbarian's interest.〔Buckle 371.〕 Monstrous human births beg the question of the difference between humans and animals, and anthropologists have described different interpretations of and behaviors toward such births. Among the East African Nuer people, monstrous births are acted on in a way that restores the division between the categories of human and animal: "the Nuer treat monstrous births as baby hippopotamuses, accidentally born to humans, and, with this labelling, the appropriate action is clear. They gently lay them in the river where they belong."〔From a description by Mary Douglas, qtd. in Cockburn 78.〕
Whether monstrous births were natural, unnatural, or supernatural remained a topic of discussion. Saint Augustine held that nothing "done by the will of God could be contrary to nature," whereas Thomas Aquinas considered some miracles to be against nature.〔Bates 14.〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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