712 OF REPRODUCTION. 



child seems to have been born at the 26th or 27th week of gestation ; and having been 

 placed under judicious management, it has thriven well. 



c. One of the most satisfactory cases on record, is that detailed by Dr. Outrepont (Professor 

 of Obstetrics at Wurtzburgh), and stated by Dr. Clmstison in his evidence on the case just 

 alluded to. The evidence is as complete as it is possible to be in any case of the kind ; being 

 derived not only from the date assigned by the Mother to her Conception, but also from the 

 structure and history of the Child. The Gestation could have only lasted 27 weeks, and was 

 very probably less. The length of the child was 13^ inches, and its weight was 24 oz. Its 

 development was altogether slow; and at the age of eleven years, the child seemed no more 

 advanced in body or mind, than most other lads of seven years old. In this last point, there 

 is a very striking correspondence with the results of other observations upon very prema- 

 ture children, made at an earlier age : and these all harmonize with the general principle 

 already more than once alluded to, that the shorter the period during which the early de- 

 velopment of the embryo takes place at the expense of nourishment supplied by the parent, 

 the lower is the degree of development it will ultimately attain ( 45). 



d. To these may be added another case of recent occurrence in America : in which a 

 woman, who believed herself to be in the sixth month of pregnancy, was prematurely de- 

 livered in consequence of a fall. The child seemed barely alive, showing scarcely any 

 motion, and being too feeble to cry. It had no nails on its hands or feet, nor hair on the scalp ; 

 and the cranium was imperfectly ossified. At the end of seven weeks it was weighed for 

 the first time, and found to weigh only 26 oz. When ten months old, it was playful, lively, 

 and healthy; and weighed 10^ Ibs. The reporter of this case regrets that he did not take 

 more particular notice of the state of the Child at birth, which he was prevented from 

 doing by the daily expectation of its death.* 



933. There is another question regarding the Function of the Female in 

 the Reproductive act, which is of great interest in a scientific point of view, 

 and which may become of importance in Juridical inquiries; namely, the 

 possibility of Stiperfcetation, that is, of two distinct conceptions at an interval 

 of greater or less duration ; so that two fetuses of different ages, the offspring 

 perhaps of different parents, may exist in the Uterus at the same time. The 

 simplest case of Su perforation, the frequent occurrence of which places it be- 

 yond reasonable doubt, is that in which a female has intercourse on the same 

 day with two Males of different complexions, and bears twins at the full time; 

 the ,two infants resembling the two parents respectively. Thus, in the slave- 

 states of America, it is not uncommon for a black woman to bear at the same 

 time a black and a mulatto child; the former being the offspring of her black 

 husband, and the latter of her white-paramour. The converse has occasionally 

 though less frequently, occurred ; a white woman bearing at the same time a 

 white and a mulatto child. There is no difficulty in accounting for such 

 facts, when it is remembered that nothing has occurred to prevent the Uterus 

 and Ovaria from being as ready for the second conception as for the first ; since 

 the orifice of the former is not yet closed up ; and, at the time when one ovum 

 is matured for fecundation, there are usually more in the same condition. 

 But it is not easy thus to account for the birth of two children, each appa- 

 rently mature, at an interval of five or six months ; since it might have been 

 supposed that the uterus was so completely occupied with the first Ovum, as 

 not to allow of the transmission of the seminal fluid, necessary for the fecun- 

 dation of the second. In cases where two children have been produced at 

 the same time, one of which was fully-formed, whilst the other was small and 

 seemingly premature, there is no occasion whatever to imagine that the two 

 were conceived at different periods ; since the smaller fetus may have been 

 " blighted," and its development retarded, as not unfrequently happens in other 

 cases. Nor is it necessary to infer the occurrence of Superfetation in every 

 case, in which a living child has been produced a month or two after the birth 

 of another; since the latter may have been premature, whilst the former has 

 been carried to the full term. But such a difference can scarcely be, at the 



* American Journal of the Medical Sciences, April 1843. 



