210 THE FCETUS. 



538. Almost all the cases we have of superfetation seem to me 

 to be referable, 1. To twin pregnancies, in which one of the chil- 

 dren, having died long before the full term, has been preserved 

 within the membranes, not to be expelled until the other which con- 

 tinued to live; 2. To pregnancies of twins unequally developed or 

 born at different periods; 3. To cases of extra-uterine pregnancy, 

 which did not interfere with natural gestation; 4. Lastly, to cases 

 of double uterus. 



539. Nothing is more common than to see, in compound preg- 

 nancy, one of the foetuses lose its life, and when born exhibit the 

 appearances of a foetus of from two to six months, although in fact 

 it is nine months old, and every body knows that most monsters are 

 met with in company with a well formed foetus. 



A lady of la Varenne, near Tours, was brought to bed of a stout 

 boy in 1819; with the afterbirth, Mr. Mignot, her surgeon, received 

 another foetus enclosed within the same ovum, but without a head, 

 neck or arms. 



A lady of the fauxbourg Saint-Germain was delivered in 1824 of a 

 vigorous and very stout child; Madame Forbet, the midwife, brought 

 me the afterbirth, and at some distance from the umbilical cord I 

 found, supported by a pedicle two inches in length, a fleshy mass, 

 in which were the evident remains of a foetus. In March 1827, M. 

 Baroilhet had the kindness to give me a monstrous product, which 

 possessed neither head nor members, and which was expelled to- 

 gether with a healthy foetus, &c. 



In 1824, at the Hospital de Perfectionnement, I received at the 

 same time with a full grown foetus, a dead one, which as to develop- 

 ment had not passed beyond the third month. M. Defermont has 

 shown me a similar instance. In the month of October 1826, Ma- 

 dame Badinier, a midwife, brought me two foetuses, one of which, 

 quite deformed, appeared to be of about two months, and the other 

 of five or six; they had both escaped from the same ovum, and be- 

 fore the full term. Bauhin speaks of a woman who gave birth on the 

 same day to a foetus at term, and to an embryo as long as the finger, 

 both enclosed in a single envelop. Ruysch saw the wife of a sur- 

 geon of Amsterdam delivered, with an interval of two hours, of one 

 child, full of life, and of an embryo which could not have been of 

 more than three months growth, with its cord full of hydatids. Percy 

 speaks of a woman who, after giving birth to a small but lively boy, 

 brought forth, surrounded by a black fungous mass, a female foetus 

 of the fourth month, in a pretty good state of preservation. Lau- 

 rette, says Zacchias, was delivered, eight months after the death of 

 her husband, of a badly formed male child, which never gave any 



