STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENTAL RATE 217 



rupted entirely. The severe condition gradually subsided and 

 she was able to carry the living child to full term. The reaction 

 of the mother was doubtless due to the death of the two fetuses 

 and the cut-off in the placental circulation. The uterus was able 

 to adjust itself to the condition and the fetuses remained 

 aseptically enclosed within their membranes. 



This was the mother's second pregnancy; exactly twelve 

 months before, lacking one day, she had given birth to a single 

 normal child. 



My interpretation of this triplet condition is as follows: The 

 mother liberated from the ovary two eggs, both of which became 

 fertilized and began development. One became implanted 

 slightly before the other and developed into the single living 

 girl. The second egg was not so favorably implanted as the 

 first; this is indicated in the specimen by the lower placenta 

 riding up over the larger one. The delay in implantation, due 

 to the presence of the first egg, caused a slow rate of develop- 

 ment at an early stage in the second and two embryonic buds 

 arose instead of one, just as was described on the germ-ring of 

 the fish. In this human specimen there is fortunately present 

 the physical cause that might have produced the delay. 



The woman gave birth to triplets, two of which were female 

 identical twins derived from one egg and the other was a single 

 sister individual derived from another egg. 



Doctor Erdwurm furnishes a further very important record. 

 This woman's mother had eleven pregnancies, nine of which 

 resulted in living single births and two in abortions during the 

 first half of pregnancy. One abortion, the tenth pregnancy, 

 consisted of twins, and the eleventh pregnancy resulted in the 

 abortion of triplets. The nature of these twins and triplets, 

 unfortunately, is not known. 



Evidently there is here a family tendency to ovulate more 

 than one egg at a time. This may be due to simultaneous 

 ovulations from both ovaries, from two follicles of one ovary, or 

 from the rupture of a single follicle containing two or more ova. 



