THE FCETUS. 209 



eight miscarriages of from four to seven months took place under 

 my care at tlie Hospital de Perfectionnement; I have observed nearly 

 the same number in my private practice, and at my public lying-in 

 ward: but in all these cases I found the breech presenting in only 

 two instances. Further, it is not uncommon to find the neck suffi- 

 ciently softened before the seventh month to permit the finger to 

 pass in so as to touch the naked ovum in the womb, and we almost 

 always find that the head is downwards. Another reason advanced 

 by the moderns as decisive, but which if taken singly would not ap- 

 pear to me to be very conclusive, is derived from the length of the 

 foetus, compared with the dimensions of the uterine cavity. It lias 

 been said, since the fcetus after the sixth month is from ten to 

 twelve inches long, it is physically impossible for it to turn after that 

 period in the cavity of the womb, whose transverse and antero- 

 posterior diameters do not exceed six or eight inches: no doubt; 

 but they forget that the foetus is doubled up in the amnios, and in- 

 stead of twelve, its long diameter is only six or eight inches long; 

 they also forget, that even at full term the child sometimes changes 

 its position during labor, and that even at the period of its greatest 

 development, the diameter passing from its occiput to the coccyx 

 does not always exceed the length of the horizontal diameter of the 

 womb. 



It is not therefore correct to maintain that the proportional' 

 dimensions of the uterus and fostus raise an insurmountable barrier 

 to the somerset motion; if this transposition has no exsitence, it is 

 because the relative weight of the head renders it unnecessary. 



§. VI. Of 8uperfoetatioii. 



537. The name of superfoetation is given to the vivification of a 

 germ, in a woman who already contains a fecundated ovule in some 

 part of her generative system. 



The existence and the possibility of this fact, admitted and denied 

 by turns by the physicians of all ages, constitutes a question upon 

 which modern naturalists have not as yet decided. The ancients 

 have handled it so slightly, that it is really useless to oppose them. 

 According to Aristotle, " cases of superfoetation have been seen in 

 women, and twelve foetuses have been seen to come away in a single 

 miscarriage in this manner. When the two fostuses have been pro- 

 duced soon after each other, they are born as if they had been twins, 

 as the poets tell us of Iphicles and Hercules." The philosopher 

 also cites, as an instance of superfoetation, a woman who brought 

 into the world two children, one resembling her husband and the 

 other her lover! 

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