This prolificity is
often alluded to, and is not confined to the lower classes, as
often stated, but is common even among the nobility. Illustrative
of this, we have examples in some of the reigning families in
Europe to-day. A peculiar instance is given by Sparkman in which
a woman conceived just forty hours after abortion. Rice mentions
the case of a woman who was confined with her first child, a boy,
on July 31, 1870, and was again delivered of another child on
June 4, 1871. She had become pregnant twenty-eight days after
delivery. He also mentions another case of a Mrs. C., who, at the
age of twenty-three, gave birth to a child on September 13, 1880,
and bore a second child on July 2, 1881. She must have become
pregnant twenty-one days after the delivery of her first child.
Superfetation has been known for many centuries; the Romans had
laws prescribing the laws of succession in such cases, and many
medical writers have mentioned it. Hippocrates and Aristotle
wrote of it, the former at some length. Pliny speaks of a slave
who bore two infants, one resembling the master, the other a man
with whom she had intercourse, and cites the case as one of
superfetation. Schenck relates instances, and Zacchias, Velchius,
and Sinibaldus mention eases.
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