SUPERF(ETATION. 211 



signs of life. One month and one or two days after this she was 

 delivered of a second child, which was in good health, and which 

 lived. 



And the authors conclude that these were cases of superfcetation ! 



540. 2d. When two foetuses are contained within the uterus, one 

 may grow more rapidly than the other; one may be expelled before 

 its full time, and the other not be born till some time afterwards, &c. 



To this class belongs, if indeed there be not a good many belong- 

 ing to the same category, the case of a lady named Dupuis, at Saint- 

 Germain-en-Laye, who had a miscarriage at four months and a half, 

 and four months after that brought a healthy boy into the world; 

 the case which MM. Desgrange and Fodere look upon as decisive, 

 and in which B. Franquet was delivered of a healthy foetus five 

 months and sixteen days after she had miscarried of a seven months' 

 pregnancy; the case of Madame Bigaud, who on the 30th of April, 

 1748, brought forth a living male child, and notwithstanding that, 

 was delivered on the 17th of the following September of a second 

 foetus quite as strong and lively; another communicated by M. Rexain, 

 in which one of the children was born three months after the other; 

 those of M. Delmas of Rouen, of M. Pignot of Issoudun, of M. 

 Wendt of Breslaw, of Dr. Fahrenhost, &;c. 



541. The two cases by B. Franquet and Madame Bigaud, the one 

 mentioned in the Recueil de la Societe de Medecine, in which it is 

 stated that a woman at Aries was delivered of a full grown child in 

 1796, and of another, also at full term, five months afterwards, in 

 1797; another by Dr. Stearns, in which a negro woman was de- 

 livered of a black child in about the eigiith month, and a few hours 

 afterwards of a white fostus of about four months, which exhibited 

 signs of life, are beyond dispute the most difficult to understand. 

 But as it is not impossible that they might at Lyons have supposed 

 a foetus to be seven months, when in fact it was not more than five 

 months old, while the one last born might have exceeded the ninth 

 month of gestation; and as they might have made the same mistake 

 at Strasburgh; and as the signatures of notaries do not constitute evi- 

 dence in such cases, we may be permitted to suspect that some error 

 has crept into these stories, 



542. 3d. When an extra-uterine conception takes place, the womb 

 sometimes swells and becomes filled with concrescible matter, as in 

 an ordinary conception; in such a case superfcstation appears to be 

 impossible: but if the womb remains in the same state as before 

 fecundation, it is clear that a new conception may take place during 

 the existence of the first gestation. In support of these assertions, 

 I may refer to an instance of extra-uterine pregnancy which lasted 



