infants, 182 males, 182 females, and 1 hermaphrodite. They were all
baptized in two large brazen dishes by the Bishop of Treras, the males
being called John, the females Elizabeth. During the last century the
basins were still on exhibition in the village church of Losdun, and
most of the visitors to Hague went out to see them, as they were
reckoned one of the curiosities of Holland. The affliction was ascribed
to the curse of a poor woman who, holding twins in her arms, approached
the Countess for aid. She was not only denied alms, but was insulted by
being told that her twins were by different fathers, whereupon the poor
woman prayed God to send the Countess as many children as there were
days in the year. There is room for much speculation as to what this
case really was. There is a possibility that it was simply a case of
hydatidiform or multiple molar pregnancy, elaborated by an exhaustive
imagination and superstitious awe. As late as 1799 there was a woman of
a town of Andalusia who was reported to have been delivered of 16 male
infants, 7 of which were alive two months later.

Mayo-Smith remarks that the proportion of multiple births is not more
than 1 per cent of the total number of parturitions. The latest
statistics, by Westergaard, give the following averages to number of
cases of 100 births in which there were 2 or more at a birth:--

Sweden, 1.45
Germany, 1.24
Bavaria, 1.38
Denmark, 1.34
Holland, 1.30
Prussia, 1.26
Scotland, 1.22
Norway, 1.32
Saxony, 1.20
Italy, 1.21
Austria, 1.17
Switzerland, 1.16
France, 0.99
Belgium, 0.97
Spain, 0.85

In Prussia, from 1826 to 1880, there were 85 cases of quadruplets and 3
cases of 5 at a birth.

The most extensive statistics in regard to multiple births are those of
Veit, who reviews 13,000,000 births in Prussia. According to his
deductions, twins occur once in 88 births; triplets, once in 7910; and
quadruplets, once in 371,126. Recent statistics supplied by the Boards
of Health of New York and Philadelphia place the frequency of twin
births in these cities at 1 in every 120 births, while in Bohemia twins
occur once in about 60 births, a proportion just twice as great. Of
150,000 twin pregnancies studied by Veit, in one-third both children
were boys; in slightly less than one-third both were girls; in the
remaining third both sexes were represented.

Authentic r