longed.—One of the two only remaining cases considerably extends the time beyond the forty weeks; for in Alsop and Stacey, the first of them, the issue was found legitimate, notwithstanding the lapse of forty weeks and ten days, and the lewd character of the wife: and even as to Thecar's case, which is the other of them, the issue having been born two hundred and eighty-two days, there was an excess of the forty weeks, though but a trifling one.
The precedents therefore, so far from corroborating Lord Coke's limitation of the ultimum tempus pariendi, do, upon the whole, rather tend to shew, that it hath been the practice in our courts, to consider forty weeks merely as the more usual time, and consequently not to decline exercising a discretion of allowing a longer space, where the opinion of physicians or the circumstances of the case have so required.
In the course of our inquiries into the subject of this note, we were curious to know the general sentiments of that eminent anatomist, Dr. Hunter, on three interesting questions. These were, what is the usual period for a woman's going with child, what is the earliest time for a child's being born alive, and what the latest. The answer, which he obligingly returned through a friend, we have liberty to publish; and it was expressed in the words following:—1. The usual period is nine calendar months; but there is very commonly a difference of one, two, or three weeks. 2. A child may be born alive at any time from three months; but we see none born with powers of coming to manhood, or of being reared, before seven calendar months, or near that time. At six months it cannot be. 3. I have known a woman bear a living child, in a perfectly natural way, fourteen days later than nine calendar months, and believe two women to have been delivered of a child alive, in a natural way, above ten calendar months from the hour of conception.
