henck, Bartholinus, Bierling,
Zacchias, Charleton, Mauriceau, Ephemerides, and Fabricius Hildanus.

In some cases this precocity seems to be hereditary, being transmitted
from mother to daughter, bringing about an almost incredible state of
affairs, in which a girl is a grandmother about the ordinary age of
maternity. Kay says that he had reported to him, on "pretty good"
authority, an instance of a Damascus Jewess who became a grandmother at
twenty-one years. In France they record a young grandmother of
twenty-eight. Ketchum speaks of a negress, aged thirteen, who gave
birth to a well-developed child which began to menstruate at ten years
and nine months and at thirteen became pregnant; hence the negress was
a grandmother at twenty-five years and nine months. She had a second
child before she was sixteen, who began to menstruate at seven years
and six months, thus proving the inheritance of this precocity, and
leaving us at sea to figure what degree of grandmother she may be if
she lives to an advanced age. Another interesting case of this nature
is that of Mrs. C., born 1854, married in 1867, and who had a daughter
ten months after. This daughter married in 1882, and in March, 1883,
gave birth to a 9-pound boy. The youthful grandmother, not twenty-nine,
was present at the birth. This case was remarkable, as the children
were both legitimate.

Fecundity in the old seems to have attracted fully as much attention
among the older observers as precocity. Pliny speaks of Cornelia, of
the family of Serpios, who bore a son at sixty, who was named Volusius
Saturnius; and Marsa, a physician of Venice, was deceived in a
pregnancy in a woman of sixty, his diagnosis being "dropsy." Tarenta
records the history of the case of a woman who menstruated and bore
children when past the age of sixty. Among the older reports are those
of Blanchard of a woman who bore a child at sixty years; Fielitz, one
at sixty; Ephemerides, one at sixty-two; Rush, one at sixty; Bernstein,
one at sixty years; Schoepfer, at seventy years; and, almost beyond
belief, Debes cites an instance as taking place at the very advanced
age of one hundred and three. Wallace speaks of a woman in the Isle of
Orkney bearing children when past the age of sixty. We would naturally
expect to find the age of child-bearing prolonged in the northern
countries where the age of maturity is later. Capuron cites an example
of child-birth in a woman of sixty; Haller, cases at fift