"In early modern Europe, monstrous births were significant events that were seen alive by many people, and dissected, embalmed and collected after death. Emblematic Monsters is a social history of monstrous births as seen through popular print, scholarly books and the proceedings of learned societies." "Most impressively, A.W. Bates draws upon his own experience of diagnosis of birth defects to summarise more than two hundred original descriptions of monstrous births and compare them with modern diagnostic categories."--Jacket.