[We are enabled by the courtesy of Professor Owen to state that there
exists no corroboration of this remarkable statement in the Museum of
the College of Surgeons. The largest number at a birth, of which any
authentic record appears, is five, and the Museum contains, in case No.
3681, five children, of about five months, all females, which were born
at the same time. Three were still-born, two were born alive, and
survived their birth but a short time. The mother, Margaret Waddington,
aged twenty-one, was a poor woman of the township of Lower Darling,
near Blackburn in Lancashire. This remarkable birth took place on the
24th April, 1786, and was the subject of a communication to the Royal
Society, which contained also the result of an investigation into
similar cases which could be well authenticated, and which may be seen
in a note in the admirable Catalogue of the College Museum, vol. v. pp.
177-185. As the remarkable birth described by our correspondent N. D.
took place five years previously to these inquiries, and is not
mentioned, it is scarcely possible to doubt that his informant must be
labouring under some great mistake. If such a birth took place, it is
probable that the parish register will contain some record of the fact.
Our correspondent will, perhaps, take the trouble to make some further
investigations, so as to trace the source of the error, for error there
must be, in the statement of his informant.]
{460}
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