This episode contains material that may be disturbing to some.

Listener, discretion, is advised.

The midwife screamed.

She hadn't been ready for this.

We can imagine her blood-slicked hands passing the child over to its mother, and we can see that mother,

exhausted and frantic, looking down at her newborn baby in horror. What was she going to do? What could

she do? And what had she done to deserve this? The records tell us that the baby was severely

malformed. It appeared to have been born with the head

of an animal, a cat, in fact, and so the mother's private tragedy quickly morphed into a public

accusation of bestiality and a trial that ended in a guilty verdict. She had brought a monster

into this world, after all, and she would suffer the consequences

for it.

As the story goes, the woman was tied to a ladder in Leidenstown Square and burned alive.

Today, a retrospective diagnosis tells us that the baby likely had an encephaly, a rare

condition which often results in a missing brain

and a malformed skull. But Thomas Bartolin, the fellow who originally documented the story in 1661,

didn't know this. Thomas was an anatomist, but how could he, a man with more knowledge of a human

body than most, have agreed with

the judge's verdict?

Wasn't he supposed to know better?

The answer was?

Not then.

...