the retention of a fetus in the uterus for forty-six
years; Stengel, one for ten years, and Storer and Buzzell, for
twenty-two months. Hannaeus, in 1686, issued a paper on such a case
under the title, "Mater, Infantis Mortui Vivum Sepulchrum," which may
be found in French translation.

Buchner speaks of a fetus being retained in the uterus for six years,
and Horstius relates a similar case. Schmidt's Jahrbucher contain the
report of a woman of forty-nine, who had borne two children. While
threshing corn she felt violent pain like that of labor, and after an
illness suffered a constant fetid discharge from the vagina for eleven
years, fetal bones being discharged with occasional pain. This poor
creature worked along for eleven years, at the end of which time she
was forced to bed, and died of symptoms of purulent peritonitis. At the
necropsy the uterus was found adherent to the anterior wall of the
abdomen and containing remnants of a putrid fetus with its numerous
bones. There is an instance recorded of the death of a fetus occurring
near term, its retention and subsequent discharge being through a
spontaneous opening in the abdominal wall one or two months after.

Meigs cites the case of a woman who dated her pregnancy from March,
1848, and which proceeded normally for nine months, but no labor
supervened at this time and the menses reappeared. In March, 1849, she
passed a few fetal bones by the rectum, and in May, 1855, she died. At
the necropsy the uterus was found to contain the remains of a fully
developed fetus, minus the portions discharged through a fistulous
connection between the uterine cavity and the rectum. In this case
there had been retention of a fully developed fetus for nine years. Cox
describes the case of a woman who was pregnant seven months, and who
was seized with convulsions; the supposed labor-pains passed off, and
after death the fetus was found in the womb, having lain there for five
years. She had an early return of the menses, and these recurred
regularly for four years. Dewees quotes two cases, in one of which the
child was carried twenty months in the uterus; in the other, the mother
was still living two years and five months after fecundation. Another
case was in a woman of sixty, who had conceived at twenty-six, and
whose fetus was found, partly ossified, in the uterus after death.

There are many narratives of the long continuation of fetal movements,
and during recent years, in the