In a 1683 text, Blankaart recorded several cases of physical deformity he had encountered, including a ten-year-old boy covered in fish scales and another child with an ear growing in the middle of the forehead.
He also recalled that a married woman in Amsterdam had given birth to two children who were:
“..otherwise healthy, but with the colours and features of a Moor [North African].”
According to Blankaart the woman was treated by Nicolaas Tulp, another well known physician. After some investigation Tulp offered an explanation for the woman’s coloured children: she kept a large statue of a naked Moor in her house and had often “gazed upon it”.
Source: Stephanus Blankaart, Collectanea Medico-Physica, 1683. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.