What does it mean to be a “monster?” What does it mean to be “normal?” These are not objective categories. They have changed meaning throughout history as people have become exposed to a wider diversity of nature, people, and ideas. From this path, you can explore some types of “Otherness” that have, throughout history, challenged apparently objective categories and shaped the direction of science. 

It is human tendency to understand ourselves in terms of “Others.” Others are things that are not like us: we are human because we are not animals, we are healthy because we are not sick, we are female because we are not male. But there is more ambiguity in these categories than it seems at first glance. 

Figure du Rhinoceros armé du toutes pieces, 1614 
Title taken from caption of woodcut. 
Source: www.cppdigitallibrary.org 

What Does It Mean to be "Natural?" 

In the early modern period, monsters were often interpreted as “portents.” This meant monsters were a sign from God that something was going to happen or that society needed to change its course. This is why monsters were so terrifying - they were supernatural messages. But “supernatural” means “outside of nature.” 

However, not all monsters were monstrous births witnessed by physicians. Ambroise Paré (1510?-1590) also tells of monstrous animals, some of which are familiar to us today (the rhinoceros) and many of which are not. The early modern period, when many texts with woodcuts of monsters were circulated, such as Paré's, was also an intense time of global exploration. This meant that “nature” was expanding dramatically. Ships arriving to the New World of Africa brought back animals, plants, and people that defied easy belief. As a modern reader looking back at early texts with their unbelievable woodcuts of monsters, we must try to imagine what it must have been like during this time of exploration and discovery.

Were monsters truly “outside of nature?”

Most physicians did not think so. They believed that monsters were important messages from God, but they also believed that God was working through the laws of nature to produce these "mira." Not miracles, but mira— wonders. But physicians did not yet have a clear understanding of how humans developed in the womb. They could not say for certain what natural laws God was working through. Were monsters natural or unnatural? This was a challenging question to answer when no one understood what the “natural” course of gestation was. The answers to these questions were greatly aided by the development of anatomical preservations in 18th century medical museums. Physicians could preserve fetuses at various stages of development and, through observation, determine the natural laws of human development. 

What Does It Mean to be "Human"? 

How scientists classified a “human” vs. an “animal” varied throughout history and was dependent not only on science but also on contemporary religious and cultural ideas. The Greek philosopher Aristotle defined humans as having “rational souls” in addition to the animal’s “sensitive soul.” In the 18th century, Carl Linnaeus, the father of biological classification, created subcategories for monstrous or abnormal humans in his Systema Naturae (1735), a taxonomy that reflected not only Linnaeus’ natural theology (God’s wisdom is revealed through the study of creation) but also the discoveries of global exploration.

In the 20th century, genetic science illustrated the ambiguity that exists between was is “human” and what is “animal” through DNA sequencing. For example, humans and gorillas share 98.4% of their DNA; humans and mice, 90%. Primatologists have proven that some primate species are capable of language, as are some marine mammals. Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, a trait once thought only to be human.

Do these discoveries make us question what it means to be “human? 

What Does It Mean to be "Normal"? 

Much of medicine depends on an understanding of what is “normal” and what is “abnormal,” or pathological. This binary is important to classifying many aspects of health: sick vs. healthy, disabled vs. able-bodied, or having sugar or cholesterol levels that are too high or too low. What does it mean to be “normal?”

This is a complex question with no simple answer. Modern medical professionals define “normal” based on studies of populations, large groups of people who are tested and scrutinized in order to determine a standard of health. Our personal physicians use the results of these studies in addition to the qualitative information provided by their patients in order to determine what might be normal and what might be pathological. 

Yet each of us experiences our own health individually. We experience our health in comparison to its state over time. Perhaps you have felt sick, but your doctor tells you that you are not; perhaps you have been told you are sick even though you feel fine. Perhaps you see a body different from your own, someone who is an amputee or a dwarf, and you perceive that person to be abnormal. That person, however, experiences their body as normal and unremarkable.

The binary of “normal” vs. “abnormal” will continue to be challenged by other, fluctuating, binaries of quantitative vs. qualitative, populations vs. individual, ideal vs. Experience.