VOL. LXXVI.] l»HILOSOPHliDAt TRANSACTIONS. 127 



The effects that such a compression on the brain may produce, have not hitherto 

 been well attended to. In reckoning children, weighing from 54- to 6-I-, 6 lb. 

 weight, and from O-i- to 74j 7j and so forth, in order to avoid fractions, the 

 numbers of males and females, arranged according to their weight, he found to 

 stand as follows. 



Hence it appears, that the majority of males runs thus; 7, 8, 6, 5; while that 

 of the females is 7, 6, 5, 8. Hence also appears the merciful dispensations of 

 Providence towards the female sex; for when deviations from the medium standard 

 occur, it is remarkable, that they are much more frequently below than above 

 this standard. In 1 20 instances there are only 5 children exceeding 8^ lb. in 

 weight. The same may be observed with regard to the size of their heads. 

 Only 6 measured above 144- inchea in circumference, and these all of the m^le 

 sex; 5 measured 144-, and one 15. In transverse dimensions only 4 exceeded 

 74-, the largest of which was 8-i-; whereas deviations under the standard in these 

 particulars were very numerous, never however under 12 around and 6^ across. 



In the year 1753, Dr. Roederer published a paper, De Pondere et Longitudine 

 Infantum recens naturum, in the Commentaries of the r. s. of Gottingen, of 

 which the celebrated Haller was the principal institutor, and long the president. 

 In this paper he proves, in the clearest manner, by incontestible experiments 

 the absurdity of the ideas of obstetric writers with regard to the progress of the 

 ovum during gestation, and the weight of the foetus after birth. He shows, 

 though they state the weight of the foetus, come to the full time, to be from 12 

 to 14 or 16 lb., that it is more generally 6 or 7, and very rarely exceeds 8. 

 This deserves particular notice for 2 reasons; 1st, because it serves to show how 

 little dependence is to be placed on the assertions of authors who copy each other 

 servilely, without having recourse to experiment even in the most obvious cases; 

 and, 2dly, because this paper has been overlooked by some of the most cele- 

 brated writers and teachers of midwifry now living. What idea are we to form 

 of the accuracy of one of our latest systematic writers, who (telling us that he 

 has been a practitioner of midwifry, in a capital city, for 20 years, and a teacher 

 for more than 12) states, in one page of his work, that the weight of a foetus 

 at 8 months is about 7 lb.; and on the opposite page, that at full time it weighs 

 from 12 to 14 lb.?* 



Of 27 children, carried to the full period of gestation, weighed and measured 

 in length by Roederer, without any attention to the difference of sex; Dr. C. 



* See a Treatise of Midwifiy, p. 88 and 89, divested of technical terms and abstruse theories, by 

 A. Hamilton, m. d. 8" edit. London, 1781. — Orig. 



