" Empedocles claims that in utero, our backbone is one long solid; and that through the constriction of the womb and the punishments of birth it must be snapped again and again to form our vertebræ; that for the child to have a spine, his back must first be broken. "

― M.T. Anderson , The Pox Party (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, #1)