Olier cites an instance of ovariotomy with a pregnancy of twins three months afterward, and accouchement at term of two well-developed boys. Polaillon speaks of a pregnancy consecutive to ovariotomy, the accouchement being normal at term. Crouch reports a case of successful parturition in a patient who had previously undergone ovariotomy by a large incision. Parsons mentions a case of twin pregnancy two years after ovariotomy attended with abnormal development of one of the children. Cutter speaks of a case in which a woman bore a child one year after the performance of ovariotomy, and Pippingskold of two cases of pregnancy after ovariotomy in which the stump as well as the remaining ovary were cauterized. Brown relates a similar instance with successful delivery. Bixby, Harding, Walker (1878-9), and Mears all report cases, and others are not at all rare. In the cases following shortly after operation, it has been suggested that they may be explained by the long retention of the ova in the uterus, deposited them prior to operation. In the presence of such facts one can but wonder if artificial fecundation of an ovum derived from another woman may ever be brought about in the uterus of a sterile woman!
Conception Soon After a Preceding Pregnancy.--Conception sometimes follows birth (or abortion) with astonishing rapidity, and some women seem for a period of their lives either always pregnant or with infants at their breasts. This prolificity is often alluded to, and is not confined to the lower classes, as often stated, but is common even among the nobility. Illustrative of this, we have examples in some of the reigning families in Europe to-day. A peculiar instance is given by Sparkman in which a woman conceived just forty hours after abortion. Rice mentions the case of a woman who was confined with her first child, a boy, on July 31, 1870, and was again delivered of another child on June 4, 1871. She had become pregnant twenty-eight days after delivery. He also mentions another case of a Mrs. C., who, at the age of twenty-three, gave birth to a child on September 13, 1880, and bore a second child on July 2, 1881. She must have become pregnant twenty-one days after the delivery of her first child.
Superfetation has been known for many centuries; the Romans had laws prescribing the laws of succession in such cases, and many medical writers have mentioned it. Hippocrates and Aristotle wrote of it, the former at some length. Pliny speaks of a slave who bore two infants, one resembling the master, the other a man with whom she had intercourse, and cites the case as one of superfetation. Schenck relates instances, and Zacchias, Velchius, and Sinibaldus mention eases. Pare seemed to be well conversant with the possibility as well as the actuality of superfetation;and Harvey reports that a certain maid, gotten with child by her master, in order to hide her knavery came to London in September, where she lay in by stealth, and being recovered, returned home.
In December of the same year she was unexpectedly delivered of another child, a product of superfetation, which proclaimed the crime that she had so cunningly concealed before.
Marcellus Donatus, Goret, Schacher, and Mauriceau mention superfetation. In the Academie des Sciences, at Paris, in 1702, there was mentioned the case of a woman who was delivered of a boy; in the placenta was discovered a sort of bladder which was found to contain a female fetus of the age of from four to five months; and in 1729, before the same society, there was an instance in which two fetuses were born a day apart, one aged forty days and the other at full term. From the deion, it does not seem possible that either of these were blighted twin pregnancies. Ruysch gives an account of a surgeon's wife at Amsterdam, in 1686, who was delivered of a strong child which survived, and, six hours after, of a small embryo, the funis of which was full of hydatids and the placenta as large and thick as one of three months. Ruysch accompanies his deion with an illustrative figure. At Lyons, in 1782, Benoite Franquet was unexpectedly delivered of a child seven months old; three weeks later she experienced symptoms indicative of the existence of another fetus, and after five months and sixteen days she was delivered of a remarkably strong and healthy child.