Harris Hawthorne "Wilder 393 



where they occur once in 6500 births. Above quadruplets authentic cases 

 are, as might be expected, very rare, but the Index Catalogue of the Sur- 

 geon-General's Library at Washington reports (according to Gould and 

 Pyle, 97) 19 cases of quintuplets and two cases of sextuplets. A case of 

 seven at a birth is recorded, according to Barfurth, upon a memorial 

 tablet of the year 1600, found at Hameln an der Weser, and the Boston 

 Medical and Surgical Journal of Sept. 26, 1872 (Gould and P3de) gives 

 numerous authentic details of a case in which eight children, all alive 

 and healthy, but rather small, were produced at a single birth. This 

 number may serve as a limit for authentic cases, but numerous mediasval 

 authorities are considerably more liberal in the matter. 



Our immediate interest here centers about the details of intra-uterine 

 relationships, and of sex and general resemblance; and, as might be ex- 

 pected, details are very meagre and are often lacking in particulars quite 

 essential to the present argument, although data enough have been dis- 

 cussed here to render it probable that in multiple births over two in 

 number, the same two classes exist as in the case of twins, and that the 

 individuals of a set may be all duplicates, or all fraternal, or, what seems 

 to be more common, both sorts may exist in the same set. When larger 

 numbers than three are involved, it seems possible to divide the individ- 

 uals into two or more groups in accordance with this distinction ; thus in 

 quintuiDlets two may be duplicate twins, while the other three may form 

 a set of duplicate triplets, if the expression be allowed, or there may be 

 two sets of duplicates and a fraternal member, and so on. 



As in determining the type of twins, the three sets of data which are 

 of use here are (1) the intra-uterine relationships, (2) the sex and (3) 

 the general physical appearance, and it seems thus far impossible to obtain 

 all three sets of data in any one instance. The conclusions are, there- 

 fore, in the line of inference, but as such, particularly with the study of 

 t^vins to guide us, they seem fairly safe, and may be utilized as prophesies 

 or a priori deductions with which the data obtainable in the future may 

 be compared. 



The obstetrical phenomena observed in these cases are not numerous, 

 but taken in connection with the similar study of twins, are extremely 

 suggestive. Schultze says that in instances of triplets his Case III (see 

 above), with a single chorion, has been noted, and also Cases I and II, 

 with separate chorions. [The first instance is evidently a case in which 

 all the individuals are of the duplicate type and the others are undoubt- 

 edly fraternal.] In another case one blastodermic vesicle was independent 

 and distinct from the others, while the other two were related as in Case 

 III [evidently two duplicates and one fraternal]. Sperling reports a 



