ting of pregnancy.

TWIN-BEARING.

As a rule, a woman has one child at a time. Twins, when they occur, are
looked upon with disfavor by most people. There is a popular notion that
they are apt to be wanting in physical and mental vigor. This opinion is
not without foundation. A careful scientific examination of the subject
has shown, that of imbeciles and idiots a much larger proportion is
actually found among the twins born than in the general community. In
families where twinning is frequent, bodily deformities likewise occur
with frequency. Among the relatives of imbeciles and idiots,
twin-bearing is common. In fact, the whole history of twin-births is of
an exceptional character, indicating imperfect development and feeble
organization in the product, and leading us to regard twins in the human
species as a departure from the physiological rule, and therefore
injurious to all concerned. Monsters born without brains have rarely
occurred except among twins.

The birth of twins occurs once in about eighty deliveries. A woman is
more apt to have no children than to have more than one at a time. In
view of the increased danger to both mother and child, this rarity of a
plural birth is fortunate.

WHY ARE TWINS BORN?

What are the causes or favouring circumstances bringing about this
abnormal child-bearing? For it is brought about by the operation of
laws. It is not an accident. There are no accidents in nature. By some
it is supposed to be due to the mother, by some to the father. There are
facts in favour of both opinions. Certain women married successively to
several men have always had twins, while their husbands with other wives
have determined single births. Certain men have presented the same
phenomenon. We can scarcely cite an example more astonishing than that
of a countryman who was presented to the Empress of Russia in 1755. He
had had two wives. The first had fifty-seven children in twenty-one
confinements; the second, thirty-three in thirteen. All the confinements
had been quadruple, triple, or double. A case has come under our own
observation in which the bearing of twins has seemed to be due to a
constitutional cause. The wife has nine children. The first was a single
birth, a girl; the others were all twin-births, and boys.

It has been asserted that compound pregnancies are more frequent in
certain years than in others. But that which seems to exert the greatest
actual influence over the produc