526 ON PARTURITION. 



for in his case, although nature has laid down for the most 

 part certain boundaries, yet there is sometimes a vast differ- 

 ence in individuals, and instances are recorded of women bring- 

 ing forth viable children, some in the seventh, and others in 

 the fourteenth month. Further, although Aristotle 1 asserts 

 " that the majority of eight months' children in Greece die," 

 he still admits " that they survive in Egypt and in some other 

 countries, where the women have easy labours ; " and although 

 he says "that children born before the seventh month can 

 under no circumstances survive, and that the seventh month 

 is the first in which anything like maturity exists, and that 

 the feebleness of children born even then is such as to make 

 it necessary to wrap them in wool/' he still allows " that these 

 are viable." Franciscus Valesius tells us of a girl in his time, 

 who, although a five months' child, had arrived at the age of 

 twelve years. Adrianus Spigelius 2 also records the case of a 

 certain courier, " who proved to the satisfaction of all, on the 

 public testimony of the city of Middleburgh, that he was born 

 at the commencement of the sixth month, and that his frame 

 was so slight and fragile that his mother found it necessary to 

 wrap him up in cotton until such times as he was able to bear 

 the ordinary dress of infants." Avicenna 3 also states that a 

 sixth months' child is very capable of surviving. In like manner 

 it is proved, both by ancient and modern authorities, that chil- 

 dren may live who are born after the completion of the eleventh 

 month. "We are told," says Pliny, 4 /' by Massurius, that when his 

 inheritance was claimed by the next heir, Lucius Papyrius the 

 prsetor gave the decision against the claimant, although, by his 

 mother's account, Massurius was a thirteen months' child 

 the ground of the judgment being that the term of utero-ges- 

 tation had not been as yet accurately determined. There was 

 indeed, not so long since, a woman in our own country who 

 carried her child more than sixteen months, during ten of 

 which she distinctly felt the movements of the foetus, as indeed 

 did others, and at last brought forth a living infant. These 

 are rare contingencies, I will allow ; and therefore it is hardly 

 fair of Spigelius to blame Ulpianus the lawyer because he re- 

 garded as legitimate no child born after the completion of the 



1 Hist. Anim. lib. vii. cap. 4. 3 Lib. ix, De Nat. Anim. c. ult. 



2 In Epist. de incerto tempore partus. * Loco procitato. 



