DURATION OF PREGNANCY. 249 



638. We may therefore conclude that tardy births are incontesta- 

 ble; but that in the present state of our knowledge it is not possi- 

 ble to affix to them any precise limits. Moreover, since the French 

 code, in order to do away any thing arbitrary in the decision on such 

 cases, has determined that the legitimacy of a birth may be con- 

 tested when it occurs after the three hundredth day, or the tenth 

 month, this point of physiology has lost much of its importance; for 

 at present what is essential for the physician to know is, whether a 

 child can or cannot remain longer than nine months in the womb. 



SECTION 3, 

 Of Precocious or Early Births. 



639. If fruits ripen sooner in certain climates and years than 

 others, if the appearance of flowers, if vegetation generally may be 

 more advanced; if the hatching of the chick varies from the nine- 

 teenth to the twenty-first day, or even from the eighteenth to the 

 twenty second; if some cats who carry their young only nine weeks, 

 may bring them forth nine days before their term ; if out of one 

 hundred and sixty-two cows, fourteen of them calve from the two 

 hundred and forty-first to the two hundred and sixty-sixth day; if 

 out of one hundred and two mares, six of them foal from the three 

 hundred and eleventh to the three hundred and twenty-sixth day, 

 while their natural term is three hundred and thirty days; if sows, 

 rabbits, &c., exhibit the same variety, wherefore may not the dura- 

 tion of human pregnancy be also advanced or abridged in the like 

 manner? I do not see that any thing reasonable can be objected 

 against the possibility of precocious or early births. 



640. Every body knows that one foetus is sometimes better grown 

 and stronger at six months than another at seven or more; that a 

 child at term is sometimes not so stout nor tall as another which is 

 only of seven or eight months gestation; that on this point the de- 

 velopment of the ovum exhibits varieties that are' almost infinite ; 

 that the changes that take place in the organisation of the womb, 

 from the period of fecundation onwards, tend to develop it in a force 

 similar to that which directs the action of the muscles; that, except 

 in case of accidents, parturition is not effected until this force attains 

 such a degree as that the uterus may contract with the utmost force 

 of which it is susceptible; which necessarily takes place sooner or 

 later, according to an infinitude of circumstances; all these things are 

 known, I say, and shall any one dare to maintain that precocious 

 births are impossible ! 



22* 



