The following case is related by Mr. George Semple: Mrs. B——, wife of John Breward, Simpson Green, near Idle, aged forty-nine, the mother of nine children, the youngest of whom is twelve years old, lost a daughter-in-law about a year ago, who died in about a fortnight after giving birth to her first child. On her death, Mrs. B. took charge of the infant, a little puny sickly baby. The child was so fretful and uneasy, that Mrs. B. after many sleepless nights, was induced to permit the child to take her nipple into its mouth. In the course of from thirty to thirty-six hours she felt very unwell; her breasts became extremely painful, considerably increased in size, and soon after, to her utter astonishment, milk was secreted, and poured forth in the same abundance as on former occasions, after the birth of her own children. The child, now a year old, is a fine, thriving, healthy girl, and only a few days ago I saw her eagerly engaged in obtaining an apparently abundant supply of healthy nourishment, from the same fountain which, nearly twenty years ago, poured forth its resources for the support of her father.”[16] _Quickening._ There is only one other symptom which I think it useful to notice, that is quickening; by which is meant, the first sensation experienced by the mother of the _life_ of the child within her womb. The first time this motion of the child occurs, the sensation is like that of the fluttering of a bird within her, and so sudden that she frequently faints, or falls into an hysterical paroxysm. A day or two passes by when it recurs. It afterwards increases both in frequency and degree, until the movements of the child are fully recognised. It is proper that a female should be informed that the _period_ when quickening takes place is very uncertain; for an impression is popularly prevalent that it always occurs _exactly_ at the end of four calendar months and a half. This is not the case; it varies in different women, and in the same women during different pregnancies, as the following one or two instances will prove:— Mrs. F——. Quickened with her first child at four months: quickened with the second at fourteen weeks: and is now in her third pregnancy, and reckons from the fourteenth week again. Mrs. B——. Has had seven children, and with all felt the motion of the child for the first time at the third month. Mrs. Mc M——. Has been several times pregnant; seldom feels movements of the child at all until the sixth month, and not strongly till the eighth. The annexed table of the periods of quickening of seventy cases taken in the order in which they have been entered in the author’s note-book, will forcibly stamp the truth of these opinions: