Triplet

“ Warren gives an instance of a lady, Mrs. M——, thirty-two years of age, married at fourteen, who, after the death of her first child, bore twins, one living a month and the other six weeks. Later she again bore twins, both of whom died. She then miscarried with triplets, and afterward gave birth to 12 living children, as follows: July 24, 1858, 1 child; June 30, 1859, 2 children; March 24, 1860, 2 children; March 1, 1861, 3 children; February 13, 1862, 4 children; making a total of 21 children in eighteen years, with remarkable prolificity in the later pregnancies. ”

“ Petty describes a case of triplets in which one child was born alive, the other 2 having lost their vitality three months before. Mirabeau has recently found that triple births are most common (1 to 6500) in multiparous women between thirty and thirty-four years of age. Heredity seems to be a factor, and duplex uteruses predispose to multiple births. Ross reports an instance of double uterus with triple pregnancy.
Quadruplets are supposed to occur once in about every 400,000 births. ”

“ The opening of this first Ballade is sad, sinister and mysterious, like the old Scotch story. The master insisted on great smoothness in playing it—the chords to sound like muffled but throbbing heartbeats. A strong climax is worked up on the second page, which dies away on the third to a pianissimo of utter despair. From the middle of this page on to the end, the descending chords and octaves were likened to ghostly footsteps, while the broken triplets in the left hand accompaniment seem to indicate drops of blood. ”

“ The patterns of a twin's right hand are not the same as those on his left. One twin's patterns are never the same as his fellow twin's patterns—the jury will find that the patterns upon the finger balls of the twins' hands follow this rule. [An examination of the twins' hands was begun at once.] You have often heard of twins who were so exactly alike that when dressed alike their own parents could not tell them apart. Yet there was never a twin born in to this world that did not carry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and marvelous natal autograph. ”

“ One twin has sexual intercourse with his mother, and begets himself and his brother; and next he has sexual intercourse with his grandmother and begets his mother. I should think it would be difficult, mamma, though interesting. Oh, ever so difficult. I should think that the Corespondent —
All things are possible with God, my child.
Yes, I suppose so. But not with any other Siamese twin, I suppose. You don't think any ordinary Siamese twin could beget himself and his brother on his mother, do you, mamma, and then go on back while his hand is in and beget her, too, on his grandmother? ”

“ Now it is customary in all happy families, when father and mother are expecting the cradle soon to be filled, to choose a name for the baby, and to have its clothes ready. This is done, so that the poor little thing, on coming into the world, will not get a chill, or sneeze, or have a cough, and die. Moreover, if it have a name, no one will mistake one baby for another, unless they arrive as twins, when some mark, such as a blue ribbon for a boy, and a pink one for a girl, is necessary. ”

“ I'm always getting into trouble, and—"
"Getting other folks out!" whispered Brother Bob.
"Well," said Miss Burnard, "if to be the wrong twin means to be always striving—in spite of difficulties and temptations—to do right; if it means to confess oneself in the wrong and to try to make amends—then, Dina darling, there is not one of us who would not be glad to change with you and be a wrong twin too."
"Hear! Hear!" said Mr. Ellis.
"Three cheers for the righter of the two right twins!" cried Gerald. ”

“ Said Prince Marvel:
"Your Highness, I alone can explain why you became separated from your twin. By means of a fairy enchantment, which I learned years ago, I worked upon you a spell, which compelled your brain to work independent of your sister's brain. It seems to me that it is better each person should think her own thoughts and live her own life, rather than be yoked to another person and obliged to think and act as a twin, or one-half of a complete whole. ”

“ Among the relatives of imbeciles and idiots, twin-bearing is common. In fact, the whole history of twin-births is of an exceptional character, indicating imperfect development and feeble organization in the product, and leading us to regard twins in the human species as a departure from the physiological rule, and therefore injurious to all concerned. Monsters born without brains have rarely occurred except among twins.
The birth of twins occurs once in about eighty deliveries. A woman is more apt to have no children than to have more than one at a time. ”

“ Hippocrates, in his work on the "Nature of the Infant," tells us that twins are the result of a single coitus, and we are also informed that each infant has a chorion; so that both kinds of plural gestation (monochorionic and dichorionic) were known to the ancients. In this treatise it is further stated that the twins may be male or female, or both males or both females; the male is formed when the semen is thick and strong.
The greatest number of children at a single birth that it is possible for a woman to have has never been definitely determined. ”

“ On the other hand, the more favoured twin, who was from its birth a remarkably strong lively infant, and met with all justice from its nurse, throve apace, and was pronounced by her to be the very picture of the bonnie leddie, its mamma, and then, with all the low cunning of her kind, she would launch forth into panegyrics of its beauty, and prophecies of the great dignities and honours that would one day be showered upon it ”

“ In the first case, it is supposed that the twins are necessarily of the same sex, while in the other, each twin child may be of the sex determined by the fertilized ovum from which it sprung. Clearly, in the latter case it might often happen that both twins might be male, or both female.
Dr. Berry Hart quotes from the records of another observer (Wilder) in which there was a pair of “identical” twins, in whom the similarity was complete even to the finger-prints. [Brit. Med. Jour., July 29th, 1911, p. 215.] ”

“ Dee is the most wonderfullest person in the world."
Mrs. Green smiled and hugged the enthusiastic Dum.
"Yes, I know what a sister can be. My sister, Mildred, is not my twin in reality, but the Siamese twins cannot be closer than we are in spirit. I hardly ever see her now, either, as she lives in the northwest and I am at Wellington all winter and in Kentucky in the summer. Fortunately, love can work by wireless at any distance, so absence does not affect our affection for each other." ”

“ Since his views were published I have observed various twins, and have seen some instances of astonishing similarity, but in other children of the same parents, not twins, more instances which could readily be accounted for by heredity and the influence of similar surroundings and nurture. A number of instances could be given of distinguished men, now living or but recently deceased, where the physical and mental resemblances between them and their twin brothers are no greater than ordinarily exist between brothers. ”

“ The woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who were nurtured in secret and made to believe that their father was dead no difficult matter, since at a tender age they saw their mother die, and they gave little thought to tracing genealogies. As our maternal grandfather was rich our childhood passed happily. My sister and I were brought up together, loving one another as only twins can love when they have no other affections. ”

“ Merely to see Ethel leaning on her husband's arm, and looking up in his face as he drew her yet closer, and, while his fingers were twined among her silken ringlets, kissed so fondly her fair brow, must have demonstrated to a worldling the irrefragable truth that happiness is born a twin, love being the parent. ”

“ I wish I was a twin.
"There's two of twins, and it must be fun To go double at everything; To holler by twos, and whistle by twos, To stamp by twos, and to sing!"
[122] His laugh was something to make you glad, So brimful was it of joy; A conscience he had, perhaps, in his breast, But it never troubled the boy. ”

“ He was already in his basket.
“As I can’t be baby,” Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier, “do you think I could be a twin?”
“No, indeed,” replied the twins; “it’s awfully difficult to be a twin.” ”

“ We thought “twins” must be something pretty nice, and learned to feel the disappointment that we saw on the faces of strangers when Mother set them right. Once at camp-meeting we were playing together, when some ladies stopped us asking, “Little girls, are you twins?” Mother was not near. Kate and I looked at each other and knew that our time had come to be twins. ”

“ Strangely enough the birth of twins seems to be regarded with horror or disgust, or at least as a misfortune, in almost all lands where Christ, the Lover of children, is not known. In some parts of Africa the little twin babies are stuffed into a pot and thrown into the woods to die, and their mother is considered disgraced for life or sent into exile. ”

“ The prediction of the sex of the child before birth can now be with some accuracy made by the intelligent and skilful physician. The method of doing so will be mentioned in treating of pregnancy.
TWIN-BEARING.
As a rule, a woman has one child at a time. Twins, when they occur, are looked upon with disfavor by most people. There is a popular notion that they are apt to be wanting in physical and mental vigor. ”

“ While speaking of twins, I may perhaps mention that in Sussex a “left twin,” that is a child who has outlived its fellow twin, is thought to have the power of curing the thrush by blowing three times successively into the patient’s mouth, provided this same patient be of opposite sex to the operator.
There is a strong tendency in the “North Countrie” to connect the past and the present, external nature and the history and destiny of man. ”

“ Although the person made king must be of the royal family, yet a son seldom succeeds, but usually a brother by the same mother, or a son of a sister, also of the same mother. Such a person is certainly a relative, while from circumstances growing out of the system of polygamy, the son of from fifty to two hundred wives might not be the child of the husband. ”

“ They with surpassing skill, most wise, have measured out the Twins united in their birth and in their home. They, the refulgent Sages, weave within the sky, yea, in the depths of sea, a web for ever new. ”

“ But in process of time, when fathers had ceased to regard the birth of a son as a menace to their life, or at least to their regal power, kings would naturally scheme to secure the succession for their own male offspring, and this new practice could be reconciled with the old one by marrying the king's son either to his own sister or, after his father's decease, to his stepmother. ”

“ There is an undoubted widespread belief that the only satisfactory way of dealing with twins is to suffocate them, as they are unlucky. It is believed that the practice of giving them away is a later adaptation to the custom followed when a woman dies in child-birth, the child, whether twin or not, being always, in this case, given away to a man of another clan. ”

“ My cousin, Lord St. Nivel, was certainly fully up to date, and his sister, Lady Ethel, was, if possible, a little more so. They were twins. Left orphans as children, the two had grown up greatly attached to one another naturally, and being the sole survivors of a very rich family and inheriting all its savings and residues, they had an extremely good time of it together without any great desire to exchange their happy brother and sisterhood for the bonds of matrimony. ”

“ The duke, Lord Dawne, Dr. Galbraith, Mr. Ellis, Father Ricardo and the four strange priests were at table.
"What can have become of those children?" Lady Fulda was exclaiming for the hundredth time, when the door opened, and the twins themselves appeared hand in hand, smiling affably.
They looked as fresh as usual, and began to perform their morning salutations with their habitual self-possession.
"Where have you been?" the duke asked sternly.
"In bed, of course," Angelica answered—"till we got up, at least. Where else should we be?" She looked round in innocent inquiry. ”

“ Twist.
"The elder of these two girls, now—"
"There isn't an elder," said Mr. Twist.
"Come, come," said the lawyer patiently, waiting for him to be sensible.
"There isn't an elder," repeated Mr. Twist, "They're twins."
"Twins, are they? Well I must say we manage to match up our twins better than that over here. But come now—hasn't it occurred to you you might marry one of them, and so become quite naturally related to them both?"
Mr. Twist's spectacles seemed to grow gigantic. ”

“ Of sons of two wives of whom only one woman has gone through all the necessary religious ceremonials, or both of whom have not, as maidens, observed necessary religious rites, or one of whom has brought forth twins, it is by birth that primogenitureship is decided. ”

“ It is in respect of the 'fatherhood’ of the children in these cases of non-fraternal polyandry that we meet with the most interesting feature of Toda social regulations. When the wife of two or more husbands (not own brothers) becomes pregnant, it is arranged that one of the husbands shall perform the ceremony of giving the bow and arrow. The husband who carries out this ceremony is the father of the child for all social purposes; the child belongs to the clan of this husband if the clans of the husbands differ and to the family of this husband if the families only differ. ”

“ Incest with thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not commit incest with her.
12. Incest with thy father's sister thou shalt not commit: she is thy father's near kinswoman.
13. Incest thou shalt not commit with thy mother's sister: for she is thy mother's near kinswoman.
14. Incest with thy father's brother thou shalt not commit: thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt. ”