onceived after the first
had quickened. Then, also, two children of different ages, the offspring
of different fathers, may exist in the womb at the same time. The weight
of scientific observation and authority has now established the fact
that, in very rare instances, a second conception may take place during
pregnancy. It must not be understood as necessarily following from this
statement, that when two children are born at the same time,--one fully
developed, and the other small and apparently prematurely born,--the two
were conceived at different times. The smaller may have been blighted
and its growth hindered by the same causes which bring about such
effects in cases of single births of incompletely developed children. A
similar supposition may account for the birth of a second child within a
month or two after the first, for the first may have been prematurely
born, and the second carried to full term. But no such supposition can
explain the cases referred to, and others which might be mentioned, in
which the interval has been five or six months, each child presenting
every indication of perfect maturity. The only explanation possible in
such instances, which, as has been said, are well authenticated,
although few in number, is, that a second pregnancy has occurred during
the first.

The above facts would seem sufficiently wonderful. There are others,
however, of the same nature still more so. In some instances, the
product of the second conception, instead of developing independently of
the first, has become attached to it, and the phenomenon has been
presented of the growth of a child within a child--a foetus within a
foetus. Such a singular occurrence has been lately recorded in a German
journal. A correspondent of the _Dantzic Gazette_ states that on Sunday,
February 1, 1869, at Schliewen, near Dirschau, 'a young and blooming
shepherd's wife was delivered of a girl, otherwise sound, but having on
the lower part of her back, between the hips, a swelling as big as two
good-sized fists, through the walls of which a well-developed foetus may
be felt. Its limbs indicate a growth of from five to six months, and its
movements are very lively. The father called in the health commissioner,
Dr. Preuss, from Dirschau, and begged him to remove the swelling
together with the foetus. The doctor, however, after a careful
examination, declared that there was a possibility in this extraordinary
case of the child within the sw