Note 277 — VARIOUS QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING SUBJECTS, ELUCIDATED BY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES.

Pliny the Elder, has recorded several histories of children who prematurely arrived at puberty. “It is well known that there be some that naturally are never but a foot and a half high; others again somewhat longer, and to this height they came in three years, which is the full course of their age, and then they die”—Philemon Holland, book vii. chap. 16.—An account is also given by Craterus, the brother of king Antigonus, the subject of which history was an Infant, a Young Man, and an Old Man, was married and begat children, and all in the space of Seven years! In January, 1747, Dr. Mead presented to the Royal Society the history of a child born at Willingham near Cambridge, which is recorded in the 43d Volume of Transactions, for the year 1745. This child was not only remarkable on account of his bulk and height, but also for the external marks of Puberty, which were first observed at the age of twelve months; no evidence however is offered in this case of the perfect developement of the genital organs, their external appearance is alone described, without any regard to the state of their functions. In an account published after his death, it appears that he was attacked by a disease resembling Phthisis Pulmonalis, and was attended by the late Dr. Heberden, then at Cambridge, of which he died, and after death, says his historian, he had the appearance of a venerable old man.