AND CERTAINE RELATION Of a STRANGE-BIRTH, which was borne at Stone-house in TOGETHER with the Notes of a Ser mon, preached Octob. 23, 1635. sayd Birth. By Th.B. B.D. Pr. Pl. LONDON, Printed by Anne Griffin, for Anne Bowler dwelling at the Marigold in S. Pauls Church-yard. To the Curious Beholder of the former Picture. Dear Countryman. OT the mere fiction of the over-daring picturer dost thou here behold: But (if he have done his part) the true portraiture of the work of God, presented to the world to be seen and to be admired. Two things I have to deliver to thine ear, which this figure cannot convey unto thine eye. First, what it intendeth: Next, how thou mayest correct the picture, if it need amending. For the first; it intendeth to acquaint thee with this story. In the county of Devon, and in the parish of the famous town of Plymouth, there is a village called Stone-house; Viculum Piscatorium I may justly term it, a pretty little fisher-town, for it consisteth mostly of men that live by the sea, and B In this village gain their livelihood by the water. there dwelleth one John Persons a fisherman, whose wife having fulfilled the usual months and weeks of women's burdens, upon the twentieth day of this present month October fell in travail, and by the help of a second midwife (through God's mercy and goodness) was the poor mother (after the weary travail of thirteen or fourteen painful hours) safely delivered of the burden. A birth not more painful to the mother (though very painful doubtless being still-born,) than strange and wonderful to all the beholders. The eye is not satisfied with seeing with admiration: and, as it falleth out in such a case, soon is the fame thereof spread all abroad. Town and country cometh in to see, that hereafter they might (as I for my part must) say; At such a time, in such a place, I saw the strangest birth in all respects, that ever I saw or heard before. Two heads, and necks, two backs, and sets of ribs, four arms and hands, four thighs and legs in a word, from head to heel (so far as the eye could discern) two complete and perfect bodies, but concorporate and joined together from breast to belly, two in one. For the second thing propounded, viz. how to correct the picture, if it need amendment; take this. When I first cast mine eye upon them lying on the table, I said, surely if those children had been living, art might have caused a just separation of them, for I conceived them to be no other than two bodies joined together in one common skin. But I soon perceived mine error, when putting my finger to feel the collar the cannell-bone (I mean that place where os froule. you see them begin to join together) I found that they had but one breast-bone common to them both, and by it, as by a partition wall, were their two bodies (as two chambers) both joined and separated: joined together in respect of the external bulk, separated in respect of the internal contents. This concorporation lasted down to the navel or a little beneath, which also was in common to them both, I still speak of what the eye could see, happily so soon as that string of the umbilical vessels, by which the mother's womb supplied food and nourishment to the birth had passed the skin, it might dispart itself. But outwardly it was one in common. Whence also it was conjectured, that though these twins might have several hearts, and lungs answerable to their several heads and necks, yet but one common liver to them both. The truth of this conjecture I leave to the College of Physicians to discover, that is not my profession, nor will I presume to determine anything in another's art, only this objection I have against it: that supposing one common liver, it must either gird them round or be misplaced in one of them: for turning breast to breast, and belly to belly, you join the left side of the |