PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
VOL, V. 1865-66. No. 70. 
Monday, bill February 1866. 
Sir DAVID BREWSTER, President, in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On the Laws of the Fertility of Women. By J. Matthews 
Duncan, M.D. 
This paper was a sequel of a paper read to the Royal Society, 
and published in the 23d volume of the “ Transactions.” That 
paper was entitled, “ On the Variations of the Fertility and Fecun- 
dity of Women, according to age;” and among other conclusions 
therein announced, was one to the effect that fecundity, or likeli- 
hood of child-bearing after marriage, increased from the earliest 
child-bearing age till about twenty-five, and thereafter gradually 
decreased. In the present paper, the laws regulating such fertility 
after marriage are demonstrated. The chief data on which the 
arguments for these laws are based are derived from an analysis of 
16,301 families, in connection with which entries were made in 1855 
in the public registers for Edinburgh and Griasgow. 
The fertility of marriages in Scotland is shown by the reports to 
the Registrar- General to he about 4*64: children to a marriage. 
But this statement is of no physiological value, since all marriages 
are included in it, comprising those at all ages and of all durations, 
&c. A statement of the fertility of Scottish wives, a little more 
4 D 
VOL. V. 
