There are two instances of delayed menstruation quoted: the
first, a woman of thirty, well formed, healthy, of good social
position, and with all the signs of puberty except menstruation,
which had never appeared; the second, a married woman of
forty-two, who throughout a healthy connubial life had never
menstruated. An instance is known to the authors of a woman of
forty who has never menstruated, though she is of exceptional
vigor and development. She has been married many years without
pregnancy.

The medical literature relative to precocious impregnation is
full of marvelous instances. Individually, many of the cases
would be beyond credibility, but when instance after instance is
reported by reliable authorities we must accept the possibility
of their occurrence, even if we doubt the statements of some of
the authorities. No less a medical celebrity than the illustrious
Sir Astley Cooper remarks that on one occasion he saw a girl in
Scotland, seven years old, whose pelvis was so fully developed
that he was sure she could easily give birth to a child; and
Warner's case of the Jewish girl three and a half years old, with
a pelvis of normal width, more than substantiates this
supposition. Similar examples of precocious pelvic and sexual
development are on record in abundance, and nearly every medical
man of experience has seen cases of infantile masturbation.

The ordinary period of female maturity is astonishingly late when
compared with the lower animals of the same size, particularly
when viewed with cases of animal precocity on record. Berthold
speaks of a kid fourteen days old which was impregnated by an
adult goat, and at the usual period of gestation bore a kid,