And this being
the general experience, when such a child does happen to survive the
mother is apt to think that it was not an eight months' child after
all, but that she had conceived at an earlier period without being
aware of it.
Women suffer most pain about the fourth and the eighth months, and
if the foetus perishes in the fourth or in the eighth month the mother
also succumbs as a general rule; so that not only do the eight-months'
children not live, but when they die their mothers are in great danger
of their own lives. In like manner children that are apparently born
at a later term than eleven months are held to be in doubtful case;
inasmuch as with them also the beginning of conception may have
escaped the notice of the mother. What I mean to say is that often the
womb gets filled with wind, and then when at a later period
connexion and conception take place, they think that the former
circumstance was the beginning of conception from the similarity of
the symptoms that they experienced.
Such then are the differences between mankind and other
animals in regard to the many various modes of completion of the
term of pregnancy. Furthermore, some animals produce one and some
produce many at a birth, but the human species does sometimes the
one and sometimes the other.
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