In 1573, the French surgeon Ambroise Pare published On Monsters and Marvels.  The book contains sections for abnormal births and monsters of foreign lands, the air, and the sea.  Pare gives thirteen reasons for the birth of a child with disabilities.31  They can be roughly divided into religious and scientific explanations.  Number 13, the artifice of wicked beggars, comes from cases where individuals would attach mutilated body parts or otherwise altar their body to appear disabled.