by his wife, a woman not yet thirty years old, with 17
children. She had triplets twice in the space of five years and twins
thrice in the mean time. It is a matter of conjecture what the effect
would be of such a premium in countries with a lowering birth-rate, and
a French medical journal, quoting the foregoing, regretfully wishes for
some countrymen at home like their brothers in Quebec.

Old Explanations of Prolificity.--The old explanation of the causation
of the remarkable exceptions to the rules of prolificity was similar to
that advanced by Empedocles, who says that the greater the quantity of
semen, the greater the number of children at birth. Pare, later, uses a
similar reason to explain the causation of monstrosities, grouping them
into two classes, those due to deficiency of semen, such as the
acephalous type, and those due to excess, such as the double monsters.
Hippocrates, in his work on the "Nature of the Infant," tells us that
twins are the result of a single coitus, and we are also informed that
each infant has a chorion; so that both kinds of plural gestation
(monochorionic and dichorionic) were known to the ancients. In this
treatise it is further stated that the twins may be male or female, or
both males or both females; the male is formed when the semen is thick
and strong.

The greatest number of children at a single birth that it is possible
for a woman to have has never been definitely determined. Aristotle
gives it as his opinion that one woman can bring forth no more than 5
children at a single birth, and discredits reports of multiplicity
above this number; while Pliny, who is not held to be so trustworthy,
positively states that there were authentic records of as many as 12 at
a birth. Throughout the ages in which superstitious distortion of
facts and unquestioning credulity was unchecked, all sorts of
incredible accounts of prolificity are found. Martin Cromerus, a Polish
historian, quoted by Pare, who has done some good work in statistical
research on this subject, says a that Margaret, of a noble and ancient
family near Cracovia, the wife of Count Virboslaus, brought forth 36
living children on January 20, 1296.

The celebrated case of Countess Margaret, daughter of Florent IV, Earl
of Holland, and spouse of Count Hermann of Henneberg, was supposed to
have occurred just before this, on Good Friday, 1278. She was at this
time forty-two years of age, and at one birth brought forth 365