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 i