Then people say that the child has the head of a ram or a
bull, and so on with other animals, as that a calf has the head of a
child or a sheep that of an ox. All these monsters result from the
causes stated above, but they are none of the things they are said
to be; there is only some similarity, such as may arise even where
there is no defect of growth. Hence often jesters compare some one who
is not beautiful to a 'goat breathing fire', or again to a 'ram
butting', and a certain physiognomist reduced all faces to those of
two or three animals, and his arguments often prevailed on people.
That, however, it is impossible for such a monstrosity to come
into existence- I mean one animal in another- is shown by the great
difference in the period of gestation between man, sheep, dog, and ox,
it being impossible for each to be developed except in its proper
time.
This is the description of some of the monsters talked about; others
are such because certain parts of their form are multiplied so that
they are born with many feet or many heads.
The account of the cause of monstrosities is very close and
similar in a way to that of the cause of animals being born
defective in any part, for monstrosity is also a kind of deficiency.
4
Democritus said that monstrosities arose because two emissions of
seminal fluid met together, the one succeeding the other at an
interval of time; that the later entering into the uterus reinforced
the earlier so that the parts of the embryo grow together and get
confused with one another.
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