[9]. A remarkable case is mentioned by Morgagni:—“I was acquainted,” he says, “with a maiden of a noble family, who married before menstruation took place, though the menses had been expected for some years; nevertheless she became exceedingly fruitful. We were the less surprised at this circumstance because the same thing had happened to her mother.
Frank attended a patient who gave birth to three children without ever having been unwell. Capuron, also refers to several cases of this description, and Foderé assures us of the fact. A case of the kind occurred too in the practice of Mr. Montgomery. Low likewise mentions a similar instance. Sir E. Moore relates the case of a young woman who married before she was seventeen, and never having menstruated, became pregnant, and four months after delivery was pregnant a second time; the same thing occurred again, and after the third pregnancy she menstruated for the first time, continued to do so for several periods, and became pregnant again.
It should be remembered, however, that some women are very irregular in the return of their menstrual periods—having them prolonged much beyond the usual interval. Mr. Montgomery once attended an unmarried woman of forty, who assured him that returns of the menses had frequently been delayed more than six months without causing ill health. Instances of menstrual suppression for shorter periods are frequent. Zacchias mentions that he attended a patient who used to menstruate regularly, but who never conceived until the discharge had been suppressed for three or four months previously. Mauriceau relates a somewhat similar case, and remarks that cases of this character give rise to the supposition of protracted pregnancy.
[10]. The following cases, as well as others, are extracted from my Note Book.
[11]. Mr. Robertson of Manchester inquired minutely into the result of one hundred and sixty cases, in which he found that eighty-one women had become pregnant once or oftener during suckling.
[12]. Dr. Heberden was acquainted with a lady who never ceased to have regular returns of the menses during four pregnancies, quite to the time of her delivery.—Heberden Commentaries.
This opinion is confirmed by Gardien, Dewees, Hamilton, Desormeaux, Puzos, Francis, &c.
[13]. “A woman came to me one morning,” says Dr. Gooch, “with a note from a medical man, containing the following statement: The patient’s age was forty-two; she had been married twenty-two years without ever being pregnant. About seven months ago she had ceased to menstruate; a few months afterwards the abdomen began to enlarge, and was now nearly equal to that of full pregnancy. For several months the practitioner had been using various means for reducing the tumour, but in vain. I examined the case, pronounced her pregnant, and seven weeks afterward she brought forth a child at the full time.”
Dr. Montgomery says: “A lady in her forty-third year, who was married to her present husband twenty years ago, remained without any promise of offspring until within the last few months; but having missed her menstruation in September last, and finding her size increasing, I was requested to see her in January, when she exhibited evident symptoms of pregnancy. She was subsequently delivered of a healthy boy, after a natural labor of about four hours.”
Mosse, one of the medical officers of the Dublin Lying-in-Hospital in 1775, states, that eighty-four of the women delivered in the Institution under his superintendence were between the ages of forty-one and fifty-four; four of these were in the fifty-first year, and one in her fifty-fourth.