must eat
bread fresh from the oven in very large quantities, and a certain
noble matron ate 140 sweet cakes in one day and night. Wheat and
various kinds of corn as well as of vegetables were the foods
desired by many longing women. One woman was responsible for 20
pounds of pepper, another ate ginger in large quantities, a third
kept mace under her pillow; cinnamon, salt, emulsion of almonds,
treacle, mushrooms were desired by others. Cherries were longed
for by one, and another ate 30 or 40 lemons in one night. Various
kinds of fish--mullet, oysters, crabs, live eels, etc.--are
mentioned, while other women have found delectation in lizards,
frogs, spiders and flies, even scorpions, lice and fleas. A
pregnant woman, aged 33, of sanguine temperament, ate a live fowl
completely with intense satisfaction. Skin, wool, cotton, thread,
linen, blotting paper have been desired, as well as more
repulsive substances, such as nasal mucus and feces (eaten with
bread). Vinegar, ice, and snow occur in other cases. One woman
stilled a desire for human flesh by biting the nates of children
or the arms of men. Metals are also swallowed, such as iron,
silver, etc. One pregnant woman wished to throw eggs in her
husband's face, and another to have her husband throw eggs in her
face.

In the next chapter of the same work Schurig describes cases of
acute antipathy which may arise under the same circumstances
(cap. III, "De Nausea seu Antipathia certorum ciborum"). The list
includes bread, meat, fowls, fish, eels (a very common
repulsion), crabs, milk, butter (very often), cheese (often),
honey, sugar, salt, eggs, caviar, sulphur, apples (especially
their odor), strawberries, mulberries, cinnamon, mace, capers,
pepper, onions, mustard, beetroot, rice, mint, absinthe, roses
(many pages are devoted to this antipathy), lilies, elder
flowers, musk (which sometimes caused vomiting), amber, coffee,
opiates, olive oil, vinegar, cats, frogs, spiders, wasps, swords.

More recently Gould and Pyle (_Anomalies and Curiosities of
Medicine_, p. 80) have briefly summarized some of the ancient and
modern records concerning the longings of pregnant women.

Various theories are put forward concerning the causation of the longings
of pregnant women, but none of these seems to furnish by itself a complete
and adequate