In a trial which took place in this country, in the county of Lancaster, Pa., as reported in the Medical Examiner for June, 1846, it was decided that Gestation may be prolonged to three hundred and thirteen days! The female swore that conception must have taken place on the twenty-third of March, 1845, and the child was not born till the thirtieth of January, 1846, or over eleven months. The judge directed the jury to return a verdict in her favor, and I suppose this case establishes a precedent for America.
In a recent number of the Medical Gazette, I find a case reported wherein the period was said to be prolonged still farther. A man left his wife in New South Wales, he coming to England, and twelve months after he left she was delivered of a child, which she claimed to be legitimate. He denied this however, and the judge in the Consistory Court decided, without hesitation, in his favor. Taking the medium between these two cases therefore, it appears to be decided that the extreme limits is somewhere between eleven and twelve months! It must be recollected however, that both were perfectly arbitrary, and that, for anything known positively on the subject, both may be either right or wrong.
Except when labor is brought on prematurely by violence, it always commences at what would have been one of the monthly periods; or in other words, after a certain number of full months, and never at any time between! If therefore a female passes over the ninth month, she will probably go to the tenth. This has been proved by extensive observation, and is only another proof of the regular method in which nature conducts all her operations. The same law is also observed in abortions, which generally take place at one of the months, unless brought on suddenly by violence.
CHAPTER VII.
PERIOD WHEN THE CHILD CAN LIVE.
The precise period when the child can live, if brought into the world, is not determined, any more than the time it may remain in the Womb. Some children may be able to live a considerable time before the full period of Gestation, and others may not till some time after, there being a great difference in regard to their development.
One may be as fully developed at six, as another at seven months. The common opinion is that the child cannot live if born before seven months. This, however, is incorrect. Many instances have been known of births at six months, and even earlier, in which the child lived, and became strong and healthy. Van Swieten mentions the case of one Fortunio Liceti, who was born before the sixth month. He was not larger than the hand, but grew to the average size, and lived to be seventy-one years old. Dr. Gunning Bedford mentions a similar case, in his translation of Chailly's Midwifery. There are even cases mentioned of children living at five months, but it must be borne in mind that it is seldom possible to determine the exact period. As a general rule however, the child does not live till after the seventh month, though there undoubtedly have been cases where it has lived before the end of the sixth month. The law adopts the medium period, and declares the child capable of living at the end of the sixth month, and not before. There is no reason whatever for supposing that it is less likely to live at eight months than at seven, or that it will not live at all at eight months, as some do.