In certain comatose states of the brain, as those produced by depression of bone, the operation of narcotic substances, or the violence of fever, we must admit the possibility of such an occurrence; _Hippocrates_[384] relates the case of a woman who was delivered during a state of insensibility, in the last stage of fever, from which she never recovered, and therefore died unconscious of the event. In the _Causes Celèbres_,[385] the case of the _Comtesse de Saint Geran_ is recorded, who having been plunged into a profound sleep, by a medicated draught prepared for that purpose, brought forth a son without being in the least conscious of the act that gave it birth; and when she awoke, on the following day, bathed in her blood, and exhausted in strength, and demanded her infant, the artful attendants denied the fact of her delivery. Women have moreover given birth to an offspring in _articulo mortis_; and many instances have occurred where the infant has escaped from the womb during the exertions of the mother to evacuate the contents of the bowels. Q. 2. _How far the term of Utero-gestation can be shortened, to be compatible with the life (viabilité) of the offspring._ If this question could be decided by the number of recorded cases, we should be called upon to acknowledge the possibility of the fœtus surviving at extremely early periods; _Capuron_[386] relates the case of _Fortunio Liceti_, who, it is said, was born at the end of four months and a half, and that he lived to complete his twenty-fourth year! In the case of _Marechal de Richelieu_ the parliament of Paris decreed that the infant at five months possessed that capability of living to the ordinary period of human existence,[387] (_viabilité_) which the law of France required for establishing its title of inheritance. The Roman law[388] “_de suis et legitimis hœredibus_” establishes, upon the authority of Hippocrates, that an infant may be born _six months and two days_ after the term of conception; while a second law, sanctioned also by the same high authority, requires an interval of _seven months_ between the conception and delivery; this discrepancy receives explanation from the fact that the ancients fell into many contradictions from indiscriminately using in their calculations lunar and solar months; thus, for instance, _Hippocrates_ uses the former in his books “_de Septimestri et Octomestri partu_,” while in those _de Alimento_, _de Carnibus_, _de Epidemicis_, the latter uniformly constitute the basis of computation. Physiologists of the present day consider that a fœtus born before the completion of the seventh month has a very slender chance of surviving, although instances have occurred where the life has been preserved after a birth still more premature. _Hippocrates_ and other ancient physicians entertained a conceit, which has even prevailed in the more modern schools of physic, that an infant