Biological Revaluation of Naturalistic Collections in Teratology

Abstract

Since very ancient times, there has been a significant interest in “monstruous” human beings 1-2.Also, this interest has led to the ancestors of modern scientific museums: the Chambers of Wonders. While studying some naturalistic collections 2, our attention was drawn to some congenital malformations in animals.Our aim was to discriminate between modern cases which for sure had not been collected for display (e.g. stuffed animals, like the two-headed chick at the Eusebio Museum of Alba) and cases that had probably been used for scientific experiments,which were quite popular in the past, as also shown by contemporary literature. In total, two recent malformation cases (Fig.1) - shortly to be put on display in a museum - have been investigated, as well as seven cases already belonging to naturalistic collections (Fig. 2). [...]