CHAP. III. Of women bringing many Children at one birth.
WOman is a creature bringing usually but one at a birth: but there have been some who have brought forth two, some three, some four, some five, six, or more at one birth. Empedocles thought that the abundance of seed was the cause of such numerous births: the Stoiks affirm the divers cells or partitions of the womb to be the cause;* 1.1 for the seed being va∣riously parted into these partitions, and the conception divided, there are more children brought forth; no otherwise then in rivers, the water beating against the rocks, is turned into divers cir∣cles or rounds. But Aristotle saith there is no reason to think so; for in women that parting of the womb into cells, as in dogs, and sows, taketh no place; for womens wombs have but one cavitie: parted into two recesses, the right and left, nothing comming between, except by chance distin∣guished by a certain line; for often twins lie in the same side of the womb. Aristotles opinion is, that a woman cannot bring forth more then five children at one birth. The maid of Augustus Cesar brought forth five at a birth, and, a short while after, she and her children died. In the year 1554. at Bearn, in Switzerland, the wife of Dr. John Gelenger brought forth five children at one birth, three boyes and two girls. Albucrasis affirms a woman to have been the mother of seven children at one birth; and another, who by some external injurie did abort, brought forth fifteen perfectly shaped in all their parts.* 1.2 Plinie reports that it was extant in the writings of Physicians, that twelve children were born at one birth; and that there was another in Peloponnesus which four several times was delivered of five children at one birth, and that the greater part of those chil∣dren lived. It is reported by Dalechampi•••• that Bonaventura the slave of one Savil, a gentleman of Sena, at one time brought forth seven children, of which four were baptized. In our time, be∣tweeen Sarte and Main, in the parish of Seaux, not far from Chambellay, there is a family and no∣ble house called Maldemeure; the wife of the Lord of Maldemure, the first year she was married, brought forth twins, the second year she had three children, the third year four, the fourth year five, the fifth year six, and of that birth she died: of those six one is yet alive, and is Lord of Mal∣demeure. In the valley of Beaufort, in the countie of Anjou, a young woman the daughter of Ma∣ce Channiere▪ when at one perfect birth she had brought forth one childe, the tenth day follow∣ing she fell in labor of another, but could not be delivered untill it was pulled from her by force, and was the death of the mother.