ON PARTURITION. 527 



tenth month. Both laws and precepts of art, we must remem- 

 ber, have reference to the general rules of vital processes. 

 Besides, it is impossible to deny that many women, either for 

 purposes of gain or from fear of punishment, have simulated 

 pregnancy, and not hesitated to swear to the truth of their 

 assertion : others again have frequently been deceived, and 

 fancied themselves pregnant, whilst the uterus has contained no 

 product of conception. On this point Aristotle's 1 words may 

 be quoted : " The exact period at which conception takes place 

 in the case of those born after the eleventh month can scarcely 

 be ascertained. Women themselves do not know the time at 

 which they conceive ; for the uterus is often affected by flatu- 

 lent disorders, and if under these circumstances conception 

 takes place, women imagine this flatulency to mark the period 

 of conception, because they have recognized certain symptoms 

 which accompany actual conception." 



In the case of other women in whom the foetus has died in 

 the third or fourth month, then putrefied, and come away in 

 the form of fetid lochial discharges, we have known superfoeta- 

 tion to take place ; and yet these same women have persisted 

 that they have brought forth their children after the comple- 

 tion of the fourteenth month. " It happens sometimes," says 

 Aristotle, 2 " that an abortion takes place, and ten or twelve 

 products of superfoetation come away. But if the (second) 

 conception takes place soon after (the first), the woman goes to 

 the full time with the second, vand brings forth both as twins. 

 This was said to have been the case in the fable of Iphicles and 

 Hercules. And it is a subject which admits of proof; for it 

 is known of a woman that she brought forth one child resem- 

 bling her husband, and another like a man with whom she had 

 had adulterous intercourse. Another woman became pregnant 

 of twins, and conceived another by superfoetation. Her labour 

 came on, and she brought forth the twins well formed and at 

 their proper time, whilst the third child was at the fifth month, 

 and so died immediately." 



A certain maid-servant being gotten with child by her mas- 

 ter, to conceal her disgrace, fled to London in the month of 

 September; here she was delivered, and returned home with her 



1 Hist. Anim. lib. vii, cap. 4. ? Ibid. 



