Recently there have been published accounts of the alleged experiments of Luigi Erba, an Italian gentleman of Perugia, whose results have been announced. About forty years of age and being quite wealthy, this bizarre philanthropist visited various quarters of the world, securing women of different races; having secured a number sufficient for his purposes, he retired with them to Polynesia, where he is accredited with maintaining a unique establishment with his household of females. In 1896, just seven years after the experiment commenced, the reports say he is the father of 370 children.
The following is a report from Raleigh, N.C., on July 28, 1893, to the New York Evening Post:—
"The fecundity of the negro race has been the subject of much comment and discussion. A case has come to light in this State that is one of the most remarkable on record. Moses Williams, a negro farmer, lives in the eastern section of this State. He is sixty-five years old (as nearly as he can make out), but does not appear to be over fifty. He has been married twice, and by the two wives has had born to him 45 children. By the first wife he had 23 children, 20 of whom were girls and 3 were boys. By the second wife he had 22 children—20 girls and 2 boys. He also has about 50 grand-children. The case is well authenticated."
We also quote the following, accredited to the "Annals of Hygiene:"—
"Were it not part of the records of the Berks County courts, we could hardly credit the history of John Heffner, who was accidentally killed some years ago at the age of sixty-nine. He was married first in 1840. In eight years his wife bore him 17 children. The first and second years of their marriage she gave birth to twins. For four successive years afterward she gave birth to triplets. In the seventh year she gave birth to one child and died soon afterward. Heffner engaged a young woman to look after his large brood of babies, and three months later she became the second Mrs. Heffner. She presented her husband with 2 children in the first two years of her wedded life. Five years later she had added 10 more to the family, having twins 5 times. Then for three years she added but 1 a year. At the time of the death of the second wife 12 of the 32 children had died. The 20 that were left did not appear to be any obstacle to a young widow with one child consenting to become the third wife of the jolly little man, for he was known as one of the happiest and most genial of men, although it kept him toiling like a slave to keep a score of mouths in bread. The third Mrs. Heffner became the mother of 9 children in ten years, and the contentment and happiness of the couple were proverbial. One day, in the fall of 1885, the father of the 41 children was crossing a railroad track and was run down by a locomotive and instantly killed. His widow and 24 of the 42 children are still living."
Many Marriages.—In this connection it seems appropriate to mention a few examples of multimarriages on record, to give an idea of the possibilities of the extent of paternity. St. Jerome mentions a widow who married her twenty-second husband, who in his time had taken to himself 20 loving spouses. A gentleman living in Bordeaux in 1772 had been married 16 times. DeLongueville, a Frenchman, lived to be one hundred and ten years old, and had been joined in matrimony to 10 wives, his last wife bearing him a son in his one hundred and first year.
Possible Descendants.—When we indulge ourselves as to the possible number of living descendants one person may have, we soon get extraordinary figures. The Madrid Estafette states that a gentleman, Senor Lucas Nequeiras Saez, who emigrated to America seventy years previously, recently returned to Spain in his own steamer, and brought with him his whole family, consisting of 197 persons. He had been thrice married, and by his first wife had 11 children at 7 births; by his second wife, 19 at 13 births, and by his third wife, 7 at 6 births. The youngest of the 37 was thirteen years old and the eldest seventy. This latter one had a son aged forty-seven and 16 children besides. He had 34 granddaughters, 45 grandsons, 45 great granddaughters, 39 great grandsons, all living. Senor Saez himself was ninety-three years old and in excellent health.
At Litchfield, Conn., there is said to be the following inscription:—
"Here lies the body of Mrs. Mary, wife of Dr. John Bull, Esq. She died November 4, 1778, aetat. ninety, having had 13 children, 101 grandchildren, 274 great grandchildren, and 22 great-great grandchildren, a total of 410; surviving, 336."
In Esher Church there is an inscription, scarcely legible, which records the death of the mother of Mrs. Mary Morton on April 18, 1634, and saying that she was the wonder of her sex and age, for she lived to see nearly 400 issued from her loins.
The following is a communication to "Notes and Queries," March 21, 1891: "Mrs. Mary Honeywood was daughter and one of the coheiresses of Robert Waters, Esq., of Lenham, in Kent. She was born in 1527; married in February, 1543, at sixteen years of age, to her only husband, Robert Honeywood, Esq., of Charing, in Kent. She died in the ninety-third year of her age, in May, 1620. She had 16 children of her own body, 7 sons and 9 daughters, of whom one had no issue, 3 died young—the youngest was slain at Newport battle, June 20, 1600. Her grandchildren, in the second generation, were 114; in the third, 228, and in the fourth, 9; so that she could almost say the same as the distich doth of one of the Dalburg family of Basil: 'Rise up, daughter and go to thy daughter, for thy daughter's daughter hath a daughter.'
"In Markshal Church, in Essex, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb is the following inscription: 'Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the daughter and coheir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent, wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, her only husband, who had at her decease, lawfully descended from her, 367 children, 16 of her own body, 114 grandchildren, 228 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth. She lived a most pious life and died at Markshal, in the ninety-third year of her age and the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May 11, 1620.' (From 'Curiosities for the Ingenious,' 1826.) S. S. R."
Animal prolificity though not finding a place in this work, presents some wonderful anomalies.
In illustration we may note the following: In the Illustrated London News, May 11, 1895, is a portrait of "Lady Millard," a fine St. Bernard bitch, the property of Mr. Thorp of Northwold, with her litter of 21 puppies, born on February 9, 1896, their sire being a magnificent dog—"Young York." There is quoted an incredible account of a cow, the property of J. N. Sawyer of Ohio, which gave birth to 56 calves, one of which was fully matured and lived, the others being about the size of kittens; these died, together with the mother. There was a cow in France, in 1871, delivered of 5 calves.
CHAPTER V.
MAJOR TERATA.
Monstrosities have attracted notice from the earliest time, and many of the ancient philosophers made references to them. In mythology we read of Centaurs, impossible beings who had the body and extremities of a beast; the Cyclops, possessed of one enormous eye; or their parallels in Egyptian myths, the men with pectoral eyes—the creatures "whose heads do beneath their shoulders grow;" and the Fauns, those sylvan deities whose lower extremities bore resemblance to those of a goat. Monsters possessed of two or more heads or double bodies are found in the legends and fairy tales of every nation. Hippocrates, his precursors, Empedocles and Democritus, and Pliny, Aristotle, and Galen, have all described monsters, although in extravagant and ridiculous language.
Ballantyne remarks that the occasional occurrence of double monsters was a fact known to the Hippocratic school, and is indicated by a passage in De morbis muliebribus, in which it is said that labor is gravely interfered with when the infant is dead or apoplectic or double. There is also a reference to monochorionic twins (which are by modern teratologists regarded as monstrosities) in the treatise De Superfoetatione, in which it is stated that "a woman, pregnant with twins, gives birth to them both at the same time, just as she has conceived them; the two infants are in a single chorion."
Ancient Explanations of Monstrosities.—From