There are recorded the most wonderful accounts of prolificity, in which, by repeated multiple births, a woman is said to have borne children almost beyond belief. A Naples correspondent to a Paris Journal gives the following: "About 2 or 3 stations beyond Pompeii, in the City of Nocera, lives Maddalena Granata, aged forty-seven, who was married at twenty-eight, and has given birth to 52 living and dead children, 49 being males. Dr. de Sanctis, of Nocera, states that she has had triplets 15 times." Peasant Kirilow was presented to the Empress of Russia in 1853, at the age of seventy years. He had been twice married, and his first wife had presented him with 57 children, the fruits of 21 pregnancies. She had quadruplets four times, triplets seven times, and twins thrice. By his second wife he had 15 children, twins six times, and triplets once. This man, accordingly, was the father of 72 children, and, to magnify the wonder, all the children were alive at the time of presentation. Herman, in some Russian statistics, relates the instance of Fedor Vassilet, a peasant of the Moscow Jurisdiction, who in 1872, at the age of seventy-five years, was the father of 87 children. He had been twice married; his first wife bore him 69 children in 27 accouchements, having twins sixteen times, triplets seven times, and quadruplets four times, but never a single birth. His second wife bore him 18 children in 8 accouchements. In 1872, 83 of the 87 children were living. The author says this case is beyond all question, as the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, as well as the French Academy, have substantial proof of it. The family are still living in Russia, and are the object of governmental favors. The following fact is interesting from the point of exaggeration, if for nothing else: "The New York Medical Journal is accredited with publishing the following extract from the history of a journey to Saragossa, Barcelona, and Valencia, in the year 1585, by Philip II of Spain. The book was written by Henrique Cock, who accompanied Philip as his private secretary. On page 248 the following statements are to be found: At the age of eleven years, Margarita Goncalez, whose father was a Biscayian, and whose mother was French, was married to her first husband, who was forty years old. By him she had 78 boys and 7 girls. He died thirteen years after the marriage, and, after having remained a widow two years, the woman married again. By her second husband, Thomas Gchoa, she had 66 boys and 7 girls. These children were all born in Valencia, between the fifteenth and thirty-fifth year of the mother's age, and at the time when the account was written she was thirty-five years old and pregnant again. Of the children, 47 by the first husband and 52 by the second were baptized; the other births were still or premature. There were 33 confinements in all."