The mother rallied quickly and got on well.

Trustworthy records of sextuplets are, of course, extremely scarce.

There are few catalogued at Washington, and but two authentic cases are

on record in the United States. On December 30, 1831, a woman in Dropin

was delivered of 6 daughters, all living, and only a little smaller

than usual in size. The mother was not quite twenty years old, but was

of strong constitution. The 6 lived long enough to be baptized, but

died the evening of their births. There was a case a of sextuplets in

Italy in 1844. In Maine, June 27, 1847, a woman was delivered of 6

children, 2 surviving and, together with the mother, doing well. In

1885 there was reported the birth of sextuplets in Lorca, Spain, of

which only one survived. At Dallas, Texas, in 1888, Mrs. George Hirsh

of Navarro County gave birth to 6 children, the mother and the children

all doing well. There were 4 boys and 2 girls, and they were all

perfect, well formed, but rather small.

Valsalli gives an instance which is quoted by the Medical News without

giving the authority. Valsalli's account, which differs slightly from

the account in the Medical News, is briefly as follows: While straining

at stool on the one hundred and fifteenth day of pregnancy the

membranes ruptured and a foot prolapsed, no pain having been felt

before the accident. A fetus was delivered by the midwife. Valsalli was

summoned and found the woman with an enormously distended abdomen,

within which were felt numerous fetal parts; but no fetal heart-sounds

or movements were noticed. The cervix was only slightly dilated, and,

as no pains were felt, it was agreed to wait. On the next day the

membranes were ruptured and 4 more fetuses were delivered. Traction on

the umbilical cord started hemorrhage, to check which the physician

placed his hand in the uterine cavity. In this most arduous position he

remained four hours until assistance from Lugano came. Then, in the

presence of the three visiting physicians, a sixth amniotic sac was

delivered with its fetus. The woman had a normal convalescence, and in

the following year gave birth to healthy, living twins. The News says

the children all moved vigorously at birth; there were 4 males and 2

females, and for the 6 there was only one placenta The mother,

according to the same authority, was thirty-six years of age, and was

in her second pregnancy.

Multiple Births over Six.--When we pass sextuplets the records of

multiple births are of the greatest rarity and in modern records there

are almost none. There are several cases mentioned by the older writers

whose statements are generally worthy of credence, which, however

incredible, are of sufficient interest at least to find a place in this

chapter. 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.

Watering of Maregnac speaks of the simultaneous birth of 8 children at

one time. When several months pregnant the woman was seized with

colicky pains and thought them a call of nature. She went into a

vineyard to answer it, and there, to her great astonishment, gave birth

to 8 fetuses. Watering found them enclosed in a sac, and thought they

probably had died from mutual pressure during growth. The mother made a

good recovery.

In 1755 Seignette of Dijon reports the simultaneous birth of nine

children. Franciscus Picus Mirandulae, quoted by Pare, says that one

Dorothea, an Italian, bore 20 children at 2 confinements, the first

time bearing 9 and the second time eleven. He gives a picture of this

marvel of prolificity, in which her belly is represented as hanging

down to her knees, and supported by a girdle from the neck. In the

Annals, History, and Guide to Leeds and York, according to Walford,

there is mention of Ann Birch, who in 1781 was delivered of 10

children. One daughter, the sole survivor of the 10, married a market

gardener named Platt, who was well known in Leeds. Jonston quotes

Baytraff as saying that he knew of a case in which 9 children were born

simultaneously; and also says that the Countess of Altdorf gave birth

to twelve at one birth. Albucasis mentions a case of fifteen

well-formed children at a birth. According to Le Brun, Gilles de

Trazegines, who accompanied Saint Louis to Palestine, and who was made

Constable of France, was one of thirteen infants at a simultaneous

accouchement. The Marquise, his mother, was impregnated by her husband

before his departure, and during his absence had 13 living children.

She was suspected by the native people and thought to be an adulteress,

and some of the children were supposed to be the result of

superfetation. They condemned them all to be drowned, but the Marquis

appeared upon the scene about this time and, moved by compassion,

acknowledged all 13. They grew up and thrived, and took the name of

Trazegines, meaning, in the old language, 13 drowned, although many

commentaries say that "gines" was supposed to mean in the twelfth

century "nes," or, in full, the interpretation would be "13 born."

Cases in which there is a repetition of multiple births are quite

numerous, and sometimes so often repeated as to produce a family the

size of which is almost incredible. Aristotle is credited with saying

that he knew the history of a woman who had quintuplets four times.

Pliny's case of quintuplets four times repeated has been mentioned; and

Pare, who may be believed when he quotes from his own experience, says

that the wife of the last Lord de Maldemeure, who lived in the Parish

of Seaux, was a marvel of prolificity. Within a year after her marriage

she gave birth to twins; in the next year to triplets; in the third

year to quadruplets; in the fourth year to quintuplets, and in the

fifth year bore sextuplets; in this last labor she died. The then

present Lord de Maldemeure, he says, was one of the final sextuplets.

This case attracted great notice at the time, as the family was quite

noble and very well known. Seaux, their home, was near Chambellay.

Picus Mirandulae gathered from the ancient Egyptian inscriptions that

the women of Egypt brought forth sometimes 8 children at a birth, and

that one woman bore 30 children in 4 confinements. He also cites, from

the history of a certain Bishop of Necomus, that a woman named Antonia,

in the Territory of Mutina, Italy, now called Modena, had brought forth

40 sons before she was forty years of age, and that she had had 3 and 4

at a birth. At the auction of the San Donato collection of pictures a

portrait of Dianora Frescobaldi, by one of the Bronzinos in the

sixteenth century, sold for about $3000. At the bottom of this portrait

was an inscription stating that she was the mother of 52 children. This

remarkable woman never had less than 3 at a birth, and tradition gives

her as many as 6.

Merriman quotes a case of a woman, a shopkeeper named Blunet, who had

21 children in 7 successive births. They were all born alive, and 12

still survived and were healthy. As though to settle the question as to

whom should be given the credit in this case, the father or the mother,

the father experimented upon a female servant, who, notwithstanding her

youth and delicateness, gave birth to 3 male children that lived three

weeks. According to despatches from Lafayette, Indiana, investigation

following the murder, on December 22, 1895, of Hester Curtis, an aged

woman of that city, developed the rather remarkable fact that she had

been the mother of 25 children, including 7 pairs of twins.

According to a French authority the wife of a medical man at

Fuentemajor, in Spain, forty-three years of age, was delivered of

triplets 13 times. Puech read a paper before the French Academy in

which he reports 1262 twin births in Nimes from 1790 to 1875, and

states that of the whole number in 48 cases the twins were duplicated,

and in 2 cases thrice repeated, and in one case 4 times repeated.

Warren gives an instance of a lady, Mrs. M----, thirty-two years of

age, married at fourteen, who, after the death of her first child, bore

twins, one living a month and the other six weeks. Later she again

bore twins, both of whom died. She then miscarried with triplets, and

afterward gave birth to 12 living children, as follows: July 24, 1858,

1 child; June 30, 1859, 2 children; March 24, 1860, 2 children; March

1, 1861, 3 children; February 13, 1862, 4 children; making a total of

21 children in eighteen years, with remarkable prolificity in the later

pregnancies. She was never confined to her bed more than three days,

and the children were all healthy.

A woman in Schlossberg, Germany, gave birth to twins; after a year, to

triplets, and again, in another year, to 3 fairly strong boys. In the

State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles I, according to Walford, appears

an extract from a letter from George Garrard to Viscount Conway, which

is as follows: "Sir John Melton, who entertained you at York, hath

buried his wife, Curran's daughter. Within twelve months she brought

him 4 sons and a daughter, 2 sons last summer, and at this birth 2 more

and a daughter, all alive." Swan mentions a woman who gave birth to 6

children in seventeen months in 2 triple pregnancies. The first

terminated prematurely, 2 children dying at once, the other in five

weeks. The second was uneventful, the 3 children living at the time of

the report. Rockwell gives the report of a case of a woman of

twenty-eight, herself a twin, who gave birth to twins in January, 1879.

They died after a few weeks, and in March, 1880, she again bore twins,

one living three and the other nine weeks. On March 12, 1881, she gave

birth to triplets. The first child, a male, weighed 7 pounds; the

second, a female, 6 1/4 pounds; the third, a male, 5 1/2 pounds. The

third child lived twenty days, the other two died of cholera infantum

at the sixth month, attributable to the bottle-feeding. Banerjee gives

the history of a case of a woman of thirty being delivered of her

fourth pair of twins. Her mother was dead, but she had 3 sisters

living, of one of which she was a twin, and the other 2 were twins. One

of her sisters had 2 twin terms, 1 child surviving; like her own

children, all were females. A second sister had a twin term, both

males, 1 surviving. The other sister aborted female twins after a fall

in the eighth month of pregnancy. The name of the patient was Mussamat

Somni, and she was the wife of a respectable Indian carpenter.

There are recorded the most wonderful accounts of prolificity, in

which, by repeated multiple births, a woman is said to have borne

children almost beyond belief. A Naples correspondent to a Paris

Journal gives the following: "About 2 or 3 stations beyond Pompeii, in

the City of Nocera, lives Maddalena Granata, aged forty-seven, who was

married at twenty-eight, and has given birth to 52 living and dead

children, 49 being males. Dr. de Sanctis, of Nocera, states that she

has had triplets 15 times."

Peasant Kirilow was presented to the Empress of Russia in 1853, at the

age of seventy years. He had been twice married, and his first wife had

presented him with 57 children, the fruits of 21 pregnancies. She had

quadruplets four times, triplets seven times, and twins thrice. By his

second wife he had 15 children, twins six times, and triplets once.

This man, accordingly, was the father of 72 children, and, to magnify

the wonder, all the children were alive at the time of presentation.

Herman, in some Russian statistics, relates the instance of Fedor

Vassilet, a peasant of the Moscow Jurisdiction, who in 1872, at the age

of seventy-five years, was the father of 87 children. He had been twice

married; his first wife bore him 69 children in 27 accouchements,

having twins sixteen times, triplets seven times, and quadruplets four

times, but never a single birth. His second wife bore him 18 children

in 8 accouchements. In 1872, 83 of the 87 children were living. The

author says this case is beyond all question, as the Imperial Academy

of St. Petersburg, as well as the French Academy, have substantial

proof of it. The family are still living in Russia, and are the object

of governmental favors. The following fact is interesting from the

point of exaggeration, if for nothing else: "The New York Medical

Journal is accredited with publishing the following extract from the

history of a journey to Saragossa, Barcelona, and Valencia, in the year

1585, by Philip II of Spain. The book was written by Henrique Cock, who

accompanied Philip as his private secretary. On page 248 the following

statements are to be found: At the age of eleven years, Margarita

Goncalez, whose father was a Biscayian, and whose mother was French,

was married to her first husband, who was forty years old. By him she

had 78 boys and 7 girls. He died thirteen years after the marriage,

and, after having remained a widow two years, the woman married again.

By her second husband, Thomas Gchoa, she had 66 boys and 7 girls.

These children were all born in Valencia, between the fifteenth and

thirty-fifth year of the mother's age, and at the time when the account

was written she was thirty-five years old and pregnant again. Of the

children, 47 by the first husband and 52 by the second were baptized;

the other births were still or premature. There were 33 confinements in

all."

Extreme Prolificity by Single Births.--The number of children a woman

may bring forth is therefore not to be accurately stated; there seems

to be almost no limit to it, and even when we exclude those cases in

which remarkable multiplicity at each birth augments the number, there

are still some almost incredible cases on record. The statistics of the

St. Pancras Royal Dispensary, 1853, estimated the number of children

one woman may bear as from 25 to 69. Eisenmenger relates the history of

a case of a woman in the last century bearing 51 children, and there is

another case in which a woman bore 44 children, all boys. Atkinson

speaks of a lady married at sixteen, dying when she was sixty-four, who

had borne 39 children, all at single births, by one husband, whom she

survived. The children, 32 daughters and 7 sons, all attained their

majority. There was a case of a woman in America who in twenty-six

years gave birth to 22 children, all at single births. Thoresby in his

"History of Leeds," 1715, mentions three remarkable cases--one the wife

of Dr. Phineas Hudson, Chancellor of York, as having died in her

thirty-ninth year of her twenty-fourth child; another of Mrs. Joseph

Cooper, as dying of her twenty-sixth child, and, lastly, of Mrs.

William Greenhill, of a village in Hertford, England, who gave birth to

39 children during her life. Brand, a writer of great repute, in his

"History of Newcastle," quoted by Walford, mentions as a well attested

fact the wife of a Scotch weaver who bore 62 children by one husband,

all of whom lived to be baptized.

A curious epitaph is to be seen at Conway, Carnarvonshire--

"Here lieth the body of Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, gentleman, who was

one-and-fortieth child of his father, William Hookes, Esq., by Alice,

his wife, and the father of 27 children. He died 20th of March, 1637."

On November 21, 1768, Mrs. Shury, the wife of a cooper, in Vine Street,

Westminster, was delivered of 2 boys, making 26 by the same husband.

She had previously been confined with twins during the year.

It would be the task of a mathematician to figure the possibilities of

paternity in a man of extra long life who had married several prolific

women during his prolonged period of virility. A man by the name of

Pearsons of Lexton, Nottingham, at the time of the report had been

married 4 times. By his first 3 wives he had 39 children and by his

last 14, making a total of 53. He was 6 feet tall and lived to his

ninety-sixth year. We have already mentioned the two Russian cases in

which the paternity was 72 and 87 children respectively, and in "Notes

and Queries," June 21, 1856, there is an account of David Wilson of

Madison, Ind., who had died a few years previously at the age of one

hundred and seven. He had been 5 times married and was the father of 47

children, 35 of whom were living at the time of his death.

On a tomb in Ely, Cambridgeshire, there is an inscription saying that

Richard Worster, buried there, died on May 11, 1856, the tomb being in

memory of his 22 sons and 5 daughters.

Artaxerxes was supposed to have had 106 children; Conrad, Duke of

Moscow, 80; and in the polygamous countries the number seems

incredible. Herotinus was said to have had 600; and Jonston also quotes

instances of 225 and even of 650 in the Eastern countries.

Recently there have been published accounts of the alleged experiments

of Luigi Erba, an Italian gentleman of Perugia, whose results have been

announced. About forty years of age and being quite wealthy, this

bizarre philanthropist visited various quarters of the world, securing

women of different races; having secured a number sufficient for his

purposes, he retired with them to Polynesia, where he is accredited

with maintaining a unique establishment with his household of females.

In 1896, just seven years after the experiment commenced, the reports

say he is the father of 370 children.

The following is a report from Raleigh, N.C., on July 28, 1893, to the

New York Evening Post:--

"The fecundity of the negro race has been the subject of much comment

and discussion. A case has come to light in this State that is one of

the most remarkable on record. Moses Williams, a negro farmer, lives in

the eastern section of this State. He is sixty-five years old (as

nearly as he can make out), but does not appear to be over fifty. He

has been married twice, and by the two wives has had born to him 45

children. By the first wife he had 23 children, 20 of whom were girls

and 3 were boys. By the second wife he had 22 children--20 girls and 2

boys. He also has about 50 grand-children. The case is well

authenticated."

We also quote the following, accredited to the "Annals of Hygiene:"--

"Were it not part of the records of the Berks County courts, we could

hardly credit the history of John Heffner, who was accidentally killed

some years ago at the age of sixty-nine. He was married first in 1840.

In eight years his wife bore him 17 children. The first and second

years of their marriage she gave birth to twins. For four successive

years afterward she gave birth to triplets. In the seventh year she

gave birth to one child and died soon afterward. Heffner engaged a

young woman to look after his large brood of babies, and three months

later she became the second Mrs. Heffner. She presented her husband

with 2 children in the first two years of her wedded life. Five years

later she had added 10 more to the family, having twins 5 times. Then

for three years she added but 1 a year. At the time of the death of the

second wife 12 of the 32 children had died. The 20 that were left did

not appear to be any obstacle to a young widow with one child

consenting to become the third wife of the jolly little man, for he was

known as one of the happiest and most genial of men, although it kept

him toiling like a slave to keep a score of mouths in bread. The third

Mrs. Heffner became the mother of 9 children in ten years, and the

contentment and happiness of the couple were proverbial. One day, in

the fall of 1885, the father of the 41 children was crossing a railroad

track and was run down by a locomotive and instantly killed. His widow

and 24 of the 42 children are still living."

Many Marriages.--In this connection it seems appropriate to mention a

few examples of multimarriages on record, to give an idea of the

possibilities of the extent of paternity. St. Jerome mentions a widow

who married her twenty-second husband, who in his time had taken to

himself 20 loving spouses. A gentleman living in Bordeaux in 1772 had

been married 16 times. DeLongueville, a Frenchman, lived to be one

hundred and ten years old, and had been joined in matrimony to 10

wives, his last wife bearing him a son in his one hundred and first

year.

Possible Descendants.--When we indulge ourselves as to the possible

number of living descendants one person may have, we soon get

extraordinary figures. The Madrid Estafette states that a gentleman,

Senor Lucas Nequeiras Saez, who emigrated to America seventy years

previously, recently returned to Spain in his own steamer, and brought

with him his whole family, consisting of 197 persons. He had been

thrice married, and by his first wife had 11 children at 7 births; by

his second wife, 19 at 13 births, and by his third wife, 7 at 6 births.

The youngest of the 37 was thirteen years old and the eldest seventy.

This latter one had a son aged forty-seven and 16 children besides. He

had 34 granddaughters, 45 grandsons, 45 great granddaughters, 39 great

grandsons, all living. Senor Saez himself was ninety-three years old

and in excellent health.

At Litchfield, Conn., there is said to be the following inscription:--

"Here lies the body of Mrs. Mary, wife of Dr. John Bull, Esq. She died

November 4, 1778, aetat. ninety, having had 13 children, 101

grandchildren, 274 great grandchildren, and 22 great-great

grandchildren, a total of 410; surviving, 336."

In Esher Church there is an inscription, scarcely legible, which

records the death of the mother of Mrs. Mary Morton on April 18, 1634,

and saying that she was the wonder of her sex and age, for she lived to

see nearly 400 issued from her loins.

The following is a communication to "Notes and Queries," March 21,

1891: "Mrs. Mary Honeywood was daughter and one of the coheiresses of

Robert Waters, Esq., of Lenham, in Kent. She was born in 1527; married

in February, 1543, at sixteen years of age, to her only husband, Robert

Honeywood, Esq., of Charing, in Kent. She died in the ninety-third

year of her age, in May, 1620. She had 16 children of her own body, 7

sons and 9 daughters, of whom one had no issue, 3 died young--the

youngest was slain at Newport battle, June 20, 1600. Her grandchildren,

in the second generation, were 114; in the third, 228, and in the

fourth, 9; so that she could almost say the same as the distich doth of

one of the Dalburg family of Basil: 'Rise up, daughter and go to thy

daughter, for thy daughter's daughter hath a daughter.'

"In Markshal Church, in Essex, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb is the

following inscription: 'Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the

daughter and coheir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent, wife of

Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, her only husband, who had at her

decease, lawfully descended from her, 367 children, 16 of her own body,

114 grandchildren, 228 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth.

She lived a most pious life and died at Markshal, in the ninety-third

year of her age and the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May 11, 1620.'

(From 'Curiosities for the Ingenious,' 1826.) S. S. R."

Animal prolificity though not finding a place in this work, presents

some wonderful anomalies.

In illustration we may note the following: In the Illustrated London

News, May 11, 1895, is a portrait of "Lady Millard," a fine St. Bernard

bitch, the property of Mr. Thorp of Northwold, with her litter of 21

puppies, born on February 9, 1896, their sire being a magnificent

dog--"Young York." There is quoted an incredible account of a cow, the

property of J. N. Sawyer of Ohio, which gave birth to 56 calves, one of

which was fully matured and lived, the others being about the size of

kittens; these died, together with the mother. There was a cow in

France, in 1871, delivered of 5 calves.

CHAPTER V.

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