Albucasis affirms that he knew of
the birth of seven children at one time; and d'Alechampius
reports that Bonaventura, the slave of one Savelli, a gentleman
of Siena, gave birth to 7 children, 4 of whom were baptized. At
the Parish of San Ildefonso, Valladolid, Julianna, wife of Benito
Quesada, gave birth to 3 children in one day, and during the
following night to 4 more. Sigebert, in his Chronicles, says that
the mother of the King of Lombardy had borne 7 children at a
birth. Borellus says that in 1650 the lady of the then present
Lord Darre gave birth to eight perfect children at one
parturition and that it was the unusual event of the country.
Mrs. Timothy Bradlee of Trumbull County, Ohio, in 1872 is
reported to have given birth to 8 children at one time. They were
healthy and living, but quite small. The mother was married six
years previously and then weighed 273 pounds. She had given birth
to 2 pairs of twins, and, with these 3 boys and 5 girls, she had
borne 12 children in six years. She herself was a triplet and her
father and her mother were of twin births and one of her
grandmothers was the mother of 5 pairs of twins. This case was
most celebrated and was much quoted, several British journals
extracting it.
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