On the alleged infecundity of females born co-twins with males : with some notes on the average proportion of marriages without issue in general society / by James Y. Simpson.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
[©1844?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the alleged infecundity of females born co-twins with males : with some notes on the average proportion of marriages without issue in general society / by James Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    IVIy friend Dr Allen Tlionison made sonic years ago a similar ob- ecrvaliun upon a free-martin twin foetal calf. The butchers in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, at a num- ber of whom I have made inquiries upon tlie subject, seem to be perfectly familiar with the fact, that in the free-martin, (whose flesh they usually reckon of a superior quality,) the womb, or calf- bed, as they term it, is in almost all cases apparently wanting; and all our intelligent agriculturists in the Lothians are acquaint- ed with the sterile character of these animals. I'hough we are certainly indebted to the sagacity of Mr Hun- ter for first fully appreciating the value of the physiological sexual anomalv observed in free-martins, and for confirmin<r the fact bv accurate anatomical investigation, yet it is but proper to mention that the circumstance itself of the infecundity of the free-martin cow has long, as was indeed pointed out by Mr Hunter himself, been notorious among agriculturists in Great Britain, and is pro- minently mentioned by Leslie, and some of the older authors on husbandry. Indeed, the Roman agriculturists seem not to have been unac- quainted with the variety of barren female cattle under considera- tion ; or at least their attention appears to have been so often at- tracted by cases of sterility in the cow, that they found it a mat- ter of convenience to employ, as we do, for their designation and distinction, a specific noun,and named them Taurcp.. Thus Varro in his work De Re Rustica, tells us Quae sterilis est vacca tnurn appellatur,* and Columella, in speaking of the sorting {de- lecfi(s) of the flock, directs that those which have brought forth, and the old cows which have ceased to breed are to be removed, and so also the tnnrce^ which occupies the ])lace of fertile cattle, are to be set aside, or to be trained to the plough, since they are not by their sterility rendered less fit for labour than the common lieifer/'-f There is no direct evidence, however, to show that the Romans were aware of the particular circumstances, in respect of plural births, under which such taurcB were produced. Though the infecundity of free-martin cows be a very general fact, still it is by no means an universal one. Mr Hunter, in his oriizinal essav on the subject, mentions that in one instance, in ex- amining a free-martin that died when about a month old, he found all the organs of generation well fornied. After stating this case, lie adds, I have heard of other twin cows breeding; but as I cannot call to mind the names of the individuals who communi- cated the circumstances tome, I have only mentioned one of un- doubted authority. • I.ibri de Rustica C.iionis, Varioiiis, Colmiiclla? &c. Paris E«lit. (l.iber li) p- fi2. + KnixjE ct vctuMa' qua; gignere desitrint suminnvcnda; sunt, ct utiijuJE tniira-, qure locum focciindaruni occupant, ablegandac. vel aratro domandae, quoniam laboris et opciis non minus quam jnvcnr;c, propter ulrri sterilitatem patientes sunt. Ibid, i-ib. vi. Cap. xxii. p. 232.