Sperling reports 2 instances of triplets; in
the first there was 1 placenta and chorion, 2 amnions, and the
sex was the same; in the second case, in which the sexes were
different, there were 3 placentas, 3 chorions, and 3 amnions.
What significance this may have is only a matter of conjecture.
Petty describes a case of triplets in which one child was born
alive, the other 2 having lost their vitality three months
before. Mirabeau has recently found that triple births are most
common (1 to 6500) in multiparous women between thirty and
thirty-four years of age. Heredity seems to be a factor, and
duplex uteruses predispose to multiple births. Ross reports an
instance of double uterus with triple pregnancy.
Quadruplets are supposed to occur once in about every 400,000
births. There are 72 instances recorded in the Index Catalogue of
the Surgeon General's Library, U. S. A., up to the time of
compilation, not including the subsequent cases in the Index
Medicus. At the Hotel-Dieu, in Paris, in 108,000 births, covering
a period of sixty years, mostly in the last century, there was
only one case of quadruplets. The following extract of an account
of the birth of quadruplets is given by Dr. De Leon of Ingersoll,
Texas:--
"I was called to see Mrs.
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