nt colors,--white, brown, and black,--each child exhibiting the
features peculiar to the respective races.

In all such instances the two conceptions followed each other very
rapidly, the offspring arriving at maturity together, and being born at
the same accouchement. But more curious and wonderful examples of second
and concurrent pregnancies have been published than these--as, for
instance, those in which a child bearing all the attributes of a foetus
at full term is born two, three, four, and even five, months after the
first, which appeared also to have been born at full term. Marie Anne
Bigaud, aged thirty-seven, gave birth, April 30, 1748, to a living boy
at full term, and on the ensuing September 16, to a living girl, which
was recognised, by the size and well-developed condition of its body and
limbs, to have been also carried until full term. This fact was observed
by Professor Eisenman, and by Leriche, surgeon-major of the military
hospital of Strasbourg. It will be noticed that there was an interval of
four and a half months between the two accouchements. The first child
lived two and a half months, and the second a year. In this instance
there was not a double womb, as might perhaps be supposed, for after
the mother's death an examination proved that the uterus was single.

Another case of this kind is the following:--Benoite Franquet of Lyons
brought into the world a girl on January 20, 1780, and five months and
six days afterwards a second girl, also apparently at term, and well
nourished. Two years later these two children were presented, with their
certificates of baptism, to two notaries of Lyons, MM. Caillot and
Desurgey, in order that the fact might be placed on record and vouched
for, because of its value in legal medicine.

The number of the entirely authenticated cases now known of the birth of
fully developed children within from two to five months of each other,
can leave no doubt as to the possibility of such an occurrence. The only
question which remains is in regard to the periods of conception. Are
the two children in such cases twins, conceived at the same time, but
the growth of the last-born so retarded that it did not arrive at
maturity until a number of months after its fellow? or, Has a second
conception taken place at an interval of several months after the first?
If this latter view be true, then, in the instance of Marie Anne Bigaud,
above related, the second child must have been c