FECUNDITY. 127 



" Osiander * relates the case of a woman who, in 

 eleven accouckeinents, had given birth to thirty-two 

 children, was herself born with three other twins, and 

 her mother had had thirty-eight children ; another 

 woman, delivered of five children at a birth, had a 

 sister who was delivered of three ; and lately at 

 Rouen, twin sisters gave birth to twins on the same 

 day. 2 Mr. J. Lewis Brittain 3 related last year, at the 

 Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, the case of a woman 

 who had twins eleven times, and whose mother had 

 had twins twice ; and the report states 'that ' several 

 of the members mentioned that they knew of some 

 analogous cases.' " 



" Dr. Mitchell, in a paper on < Plural Births in Con- 

 nection with Idiocy,' * cites the following cases : The 

 mother of an idiot, twin-born, bore twins twice, the 

 maternal grandmother once, one maternal aunt twice, 

 another once, and a sister once ; in a second case the 

 mother was herself one of twins, and she bore twins 

 once, and, in a third case of a twin-born idiot, the 

 aunt had borne twins ; while among the cases in which 

 the idiot was not twin-born, in one the mother and 

 the maternal grandmother each bore twins twice ; in 

 a second case the mother and the maternal grand- 

 mother each bore twins once, and a maternal aunt 

 twice ; in a third case the mother and three maternal 

 aunts each bore twins once ; in a fourth case the 

 mother bore twins once, and a maternal aunt bore 



1 "Handbucb der Entbindungskunst," Band i., pp. 316, 317. 

 8 British Medical Journal, November 30, 1861, p. 598. 



3 Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1862, p. 468. 



4 Medical Times and Gazette, 1862, p. 513. 



