Fecundity, fertility, sterility and allied topics / by J. Matthews Duncan.

  • James Matthews Duncan
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fecundity, fertility, sterility and allied topics / by J. Matthews Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    491/522 (page 471)
    mating the results of it, appears to be of less value than either of the two former. Every case, almost, is in- validated because we do not know the authority or grounds upon which it is said that the day of fruitful intercourse was known. We do not know even the observers' names. Dr. Montgomery has laboriously collected cases of protracted pregnancy, all of which, so far as available for this table, find place in it. The whole weight and importance of it is contributed by the distinguished obstetrician s name that publishes it. That authority is undoubtedly of the very highest, but can scarcely be communicable to cases derived from a promiscuous set of observers, whose reasons for decidedly fixing on a single day are not given. In an exact investigation like this all cases should be rejected except those dating from coitus on a single day. But let us examine and see what this table affords towards the solution of the question. Omitting six cases where a single day is not given, we have fifty where the interval between fruitful intercourse and parturition is said to be as follows :—242, 258, 258, 263, 265, 267, 267, 267,267, 268,269, 269, 272, 273, 273, 274, 274, 275, 275, 276, 277, 277, 278, 278, 279, 279, 279, 279, 279, 280, 280, 280, 280, 281, 283, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287,287, 287,288,290, 291, 291, 292, 293, 293, 297. Of these fifty cases, all those satis- factorily known to Dr. Montgomery, the mean duration is 277 days. This table, framed under the conditions above described, yields a result opposed to the dogma of its author. Where, then, is the authority for stating