which had never appeared; the
second, a married woman of forty-two, who throughout a healthy
connubial life had never menstruated. An instance is known to the
authors of a woman of forty who has never menstruated, though she is of
exceptional vigor and development. She has been married many years
without pregnancy.

The medical literature relative to precocious impregnation is full of
marvelous instances. Individually, many of the cases would be beyond
credibility, but when instance after instance is reported by reliable
authorities we must accept the possibility of their occurrence, even if
we doubt the statements of some of the authorities. No less a medical
celebrity than the illustrious Sir Astley Cooper remarks that on one
occasion he saw a girl in Scotland, seven years old, whose pelvis was
so fully developed that he was sure she could easily give birth to a
child; and Warner's case of the Jewish girl three and a half years old,
with a pelvis of normal width, more than substantiates this
supposition. Similar examples of precocious pelvic and sexual
development are on record in abundance, and nearly every medical man of
experience has seen cases of infantile masturbation.

The ordinary period of female maturity is astonishingly late when
compared with the lower animals of the same size, particularly when
viewed with cases of animal precocity on record. Berthold speaks of a
kid fourteen days old which was impregnated by an adult goat, and at
the usual period of gestation bore a kid, which was mature but weak, to
which it gave milk in abundance, and both the mother and kid grew up
strong. Compared with the above, child-bearing by women of eight is not
extraordinary.

The earliest case of conception that has come to the authors' notice is
a quotation in one of the last century books from von Mandelslo of
impregnation at six; but a careful search in the British Museum failed
to confirm this statement, and, for the present, we must accept the
statement as hearsay and without authority available for
reference-purposes.

Molitor gives an instance of precocious pregnancy in a child of eight.
It was probably the same case spoken of by Lefebvre and reported to the
Belgium Academy: A girl, born in Luxemborg, well developed sexually,
having hair on the pubis at birth, who menstruated at four, and at the
age of eight was impregnated by a cousin of thirty-seven, who was
sentenced to five years' imprisonment for seduction.