Dancing, Tumbling, and Posing Babies in the Womb

I have a knack for enjoying the more salacious and little talked about aspects of art.  We may think of this as a taboo topic or even just a topic we do not literally think about much, but babies in the womb are all over the place from the political debate on abortion (stay out of my vagina) to pictures of ultrasounds posted on Facebook.  The medieval idea of the baby in the womb is pretty hilarious.  

This baby is doing yoga:

It’s going to be one calm and fit baby. (Disclaimer: this baby is probably not doing yoga. They probably don't know what yoga is in the 15th century.) Images like this one populate medieval manuscripts.  These illustrations show toddlers in the womb in silly classical poses.  I am not kidding.  This is what they believed babies were like in the womb!  The various poses do speak to their (and by ‘their’ I mean men) knowledge of the baby kicking. 

Manuscript 3701-15 created in the 9th-11th century from Muscio Medicus’ Musitio Gynaecia, a treatise on gynecology.

Before the Enlightenment, there were many interpretations on how the mysterious womb looked and functioned.  At one time they thought the uterus was the same as the penis except turned inside the body.  Another theory claimed the womb was divided into seven chambers, one for each day of the week.  This meant that up to seven babies could be born from one pregnancy.  

Notice these last two wombs have horns.  This is because doctors would autopsy animals and they just applied the structure to those uteri to humans.  
     
Another theory held on to the chamber idea but said there was only two: one for males and one for females.  They later adjusted it to accommodate a third chamber for hermaphrodites. 

Then the magnificent Leonardo came along and gave history this image:

It is slightly more accurate, but it was only a sketch and not seen outside Leonardo’s circle of friends.  So the ideas did not spread.  Historical gossip says Leonardo fished a drowned pregnant woman out of the Arno River in Florence and snuck her to an underground room to autopsy.  He had to keep it secret because it was against church law to cut open an innocent person because the body needed to be whole for the last judgment.  

Any knowledge of the human body came from very stiff public autopsies of executed criminals.  The doctor would read from a book which told what to do and a barber (because they were good with their hands and had similar utensils) would do the dirty work.  Any movement outside the book was not allowed.  

Imagine the terror of being caught Leonardo went through to acquire this image.  Imagine the stench of the decaying body, not on ice and probably in a closed stuffy room with no windows.  This image is a big deal for history because Leonardo experimented with the body and was able to view things most doctors never dreamed of.  

Renaissance artists dared to slice open the truth in their pursuit to realistically depict nature.  To accurately draw something, you had to understand it.  A true Renaissance man/woman is insatiably curious about all aspects of life.  A trait our focus-on-one-field culture needs to take into consideration.  Should we know a lot about a little or a little about a lot?  

For one, my curiosity knows very few limits (one being math, but if someone could explain how it works in the real world, I might like it).  Despite the saying "curiosity killed the cat," wonder is a good trait.  Diving into the mysteries of the female body just teaches people how it works and that leads to better health for females.  Diving into any mystery may have it's risks, but greater knowledge for all is usually the reward.