540 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7O9. 



den, &c. but having once breathed, it can scarcely live a moment in that man- 

 ner ? Etmuller's words are to the following purpose: some consider the vigilus 

 uterinus to be an invincible argument for the respiration of the foetus in the uterus. 

 But since the testimony of weak women, the usual evidences in such cases, is not 

 much to be regarded, and that the observation is not so accurately made, as to 

 serve for a foundation of resolving this problem, I justly suspect with Diemer- 

 broeck, that this seeming crying proceeds from the croaking of the flatulent 

 guts compressed by the foetus, which is often very surprising in some persons, 

 imitating sighs and groans. 



The matter of fact being thus called in question, may, in my opinion, receive 

 an answer, in some measure, from the case in question ; concerning which I 

 must needs say, that though I am clearly of opinion, that the foetus does not 

 live in the womb by breathing, yet the evidence is so clear in the present case, 

 that I am fully satisfied it was really the crying of the foetus, and not the 

 croaking of the guts, or womb, or the effect of any feminine imagination. 



For here we have a thing happening not once or twice only, but a great 

 many times ; almost every day, and divers times in the day ; and that for near 

 5 weeks together. In the next place, we have the child heard to cry aloud, 

 so as to be distinctly heard by persons in another room. Consequently the 

 hearers could more easily and certainly distinguish whether the noise was 

 cr}'ing or croaking: and the description the mother and others gave me of it 

 was, that the noise was as if a born-infant had cried eagerly, shut up close in a 

 . tub. Thirdly, the crying seemed to be so eager as to end in sobbing, like 

 what is observable oftentimes in born infants. Fourthly, it was heard not 

 alone by the father and mother, but by many of the neighbourhood, most of 

 them used to children ; who all, with the greatest assurance, affirm it to have 

 been as manifest crying, as ever they heard from a born-infant. And lastly, 

 the midwife told me, that laying her hand on the left-side of the woman's 

 belly, where the child lay when it cried, she could plainly feel a motion under 

 her hand, like that of respiration, every blast of the child's crying sensibly 

 touching her hand. 



These particulars not only prove the reality of the thing, but show the case 

 to be very considerable. I have met with many instances of this nature in 

 •everal authors, but not one of so long continuance, and in which there were 

 such frequent reiterations of the crying. Some of the best attested cases may 

 deserve to be recounted here. Verzascha, of Basil, has given a good catalogue 

 of them, in the third observation of his Observ. Medic. But passing by the 

 cases he mentions, attested only by illiterate persons, I shall name a few that 

 Mem to have better evidence. Ant. Deusingius, in his Dissert, de Generat. 



