It is a matter of conjecture what the effect would be of such a premium in countries with a lowering birth-rate, and a French medical journal, quoting the foregoing, regretfully wishes for some countrymen at home like their brothers in Quebec.
Old Explanations of Prolificity .-- The old explanation of the causation of the remarkable exceptions to the rules of prolificity was similar to that advanced by Empedocles, who says that the greater the quantity of semen, the greater the number of children at birth.

Pare, later, uses a similar reason to explain the causation of monstrosities, grouping them into two classes, those due to deficiency of semen, such as the acephalous type, and those due to excess, such as the double monsters.
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.

Aristotle gives it as his opinion that one woman can bring forth no more than 5 children at a single birth, and discredits reports of multiplicity above this number; while Pliny, who is not held to be so trustworthy, positively states that there were authentic records of as many as 12 at a birth.

Throughout the ages in which superstitious distortion of facts and unquestioning credulity was unchecked, all sorts of incredible accounts of prolificity are found.