The Journal of St.
Petersburg, a newspaper of the highest standard, stated that at
the end of July, 1871, a Jewish woman residing in Courland gave
birth to 4 girls, and again, in May, 1872, bore 2 boys and a
girl; the mother and the 7 children, born within a period of ten
months, were doing well at the time of the report. In the village
of Iwokina, on May 26, 1854, the wife of a peasant bore 4
children at a birth, all surviving. Bousquet speaks of a
primiparous mother, aged twenty-four, giving birth to 4 living
infants, 3 by the breech and 1 by the vertex, apparently all in
one bag of membranes. They were nourished by the help of 3
wet-nurses. Bedford speaks of 4 children at a birth, averaging 5
pounds each, and all nursing the mother.
Quintuplets are quite rare, and the Index Catalogue of the
Surgeon General's Library, U. S. A., gives only 19 cases, reports
of a few of which will be given here, together with others not
given in the Catalogue, and from less scientific though reliable
sources. In the year 1731 there was one case of quintuplets in
Upper Saxony and another near Prague, Bohemia. In both of these
cases the children were all christened and had all lived to
maturity. Garthshore speaks of a healthy woman, Margaret
Waddington, giving birth to 5 girls, 2 of which lived; the 2 that
lived weighed at birth 8 pounds 12 ounces and 9 pounds,
respectively.
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