Wherefore their opinion is absurd,
who assert that a child at seven months cannot be perfect and long
lived; and that it cannot in all parts be perfect until the ninth
month." Thereupon the author proceeds to tell a passage from his own
knowledge, viz.: "Of late there happened a great disturbance among us,
which ended not without bloodshed; and was occasioned by a virgin, whose
chastity had been violated, descending from a noble family of unspotted
fame. Several charged the fact upon the Judge, who was president of a
city in Flanders, who firmly denied it, saying he was ready to take his
oath that he never had any carnal copulation with her, and that he would
not father that, which was none of his; and farther argued, that he
verily believed it was a child born in seven months, himself being many
miles distant from the mother of it when it was conceived. Upon which
the judges decreed that the child should be viewed by able physicians
and experienced women, and that they should make their report. They
having made diligent inquiry, all of them with one mind, concluded the
child, without discussing who was the father, was born within the space
of seven months, and that it was carried in the mother's womb but
twenty-seven weeks and some odd days; but if she should have gone full
nine months, the child's parts and limbs would have been more firm and
strong, and the structure of the body more compact; for the skin was
very loose, and the breast bone that defends the heart, and the gristles
that lay over the stomach, lay higher than naturally they should be,
not plain, but crooked and sharp, rigid or pointed, like those of a
young chicken hatched in the beginning of spring.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51