Dethardingius mentions
a healthy child born one-half hour after the mother's death. In
the Gentleman's Magazine there is a record of an instance, in
1759, in which a midwife, after the death of a woman whom she had
failed to deliver, imagined that she saw a movement under the
shroud and found a child between its mother's legs. It died soon
after. Valerius Maximus says that while the body of the mother of
Gorgia Epirotas was being carried to the grave, a loud noise was
heard to come from the coffin and on examination a live child was
found between the thighs,--whence arose the proverb: "Gorgiam
prius ad funus elatum, quam natum fuisse."
Other cases of postmortem delivery are less successful, the
delivery being delayed too late for the child to be viable. The
first of Aveling's cases was that of a pregnant woman who was
hanged by a Spanish Inquisitor in 1551 While still hanging, four
hours later, two children were said to have dropped from her
womb. The second case was of a woman of Madrid, who after death
was shut in a sepulcher. Some months after, when the tomb was
opened, a dead infant was found by the side of the corpse.
Rolfinkius tells of a woman who died during parturition, and her
body being placed in a cellar, five days later a dead boy and
girl were found on the bier.
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