etts a mother at ten years, eight months, and seventeen days,
and one in Philadelphia at eleven years and three months. The first
case was one of infantile precocity, the other belonging to a much
later period, the menstrual function having been established but a few
months prior to conception. All these girls had well-developed pelves,
large mammae, and the general marks of womanhood, and bore living
children. It has been remarked of 3 very markedly precocious cases of
pregnancy that one was the daughter of very humble parents, one born in
an almshouse, and the other raised by her mother in a house of
prostitution. The only significance of this statement is the greater
amount of vice and opportunity for precocious sexual intercourse to
which they were exposed; doubtless similar cases under more favorable
conditions would never be recognized as such.

The instance in the Journal decavans is reiterated in 1775, which is
but such a repetition as is found all through medical literature--"new
friends with old faces," as it were. Haller observed a case of
impregnation in a girl of nine, who had menstruated several years, and
others who had become pregnant at nine, ten, and twelve years
respectively. Rowlett, whose case is mentioned by Harris, saw a child
who had menstruated the first year and regularly thereafter, and gave
birth to a child weighing 7 3/4 pounds when she was only ten years and
thirteen days old. At the time of delivery she measured 4 feet 7
inches in height and weighed 100 pounds. Curtis, who is also quoted by
Harris, relates the history of Elizabeth Drayton, who became pregnant
before she was ten, and was delivered of a full-grown, living male
child weighing 8 pounds. She had menstruated once or twice before
conception, was fairly healthy during gestation, and had a rather
lingering but natural labor. To complete the story, the father of this
child was a boy of fifteen. One of the faculty of Montpellier has
reported an instance at New Orleans of a young girl of eleven, who
became impregnated by a youth who was not yet sixteen. Maygrier says
that he knew a girl of twelve, living in the Faubourg Saint-Germain,
who was confined.

Harris relates the particulars of the case of a white girl who began to
menstruate at eleven years and four months, and who gave birth to an
over-sized male child on January 21, 1872, when she was twelve years
and nine months old. She had an abundance of milk and nursed the child;
t