Quintuplets

The rough, nickel-loded, forest-fuzzed Canadian frontier at the east end of Lake Nipissing bulged large with spring's fertility last week. The full moon with Venus, Mars and Saturn accompanying swelled pompously across the midnight sky. And in a lamplit farmhouse near Callander a buxom French-Canadian woman of 24 whimpered with the unusual fullness of her womb. She, too, had three attendants--her aunt, another goodwife who had borne 17 children, and her husband Ovila Dionne. Upstairs in bed were the two boys and three girls of the Dionnes. Four years in his grave lay their sixth child.

Toward 4 a. m. things began popping in the uncarpeted downstairs bedroom where Elzire Dionne lay. "C,a me fait mal," she wept. Ovila Dionne surmised that his wife was complaining about the swelling of her legs. But the goodwives knew that Elzire Dionne was on the verge of bearing her seventh child, perhaps twins. They dispatched Ovila down the rocky, forest-edged road to Dr. Dafoe's, placed kettles and pots of water to boil, laid out clean towels and a bottle of olive oil on the new bedroom bureau, lined a wicker clothesbasket with pads and sheets to receive the newcomer, washed their hands, and composed themselves to watch a labor which no one expected for at least another month.

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe. a stocky little grey-haired practitioner who has delivered some 1,500 children in frontier Ontario, leaped nimbly into his clothes when Ovila timidly rapped at the door. In the doctor's Dodge they drove back to the Dionne house.

A premature baby girl was there ahead of them, and another was on the way before the doctor could remove his coat, roll up his sleeves and wash his hands. Like a football quarterback, Dr. Dafoe passed another girl to the dumbfounded goodwives and another and another and another. "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu," sniffled Papa Dionne, fetching and pouring hot water. Fearing that none of the 9-in., 8-mo. mites would live long enough for a priest to arrive, he baptized each one himself, as Dr. Dafoe passed her back. With the birth of the fifth girl, who completed the 31st authentically known quintuplet in 500 years, Mrs. Elzire Dionne fainted. It all had taken place in 30 minutes.

Ovila Dionne wept: "I am ashamed of myself."

He fetched a potato scales and weighed the lot in the clothesbasket: 13 Ib. 6 oz. The Dionne roosters were crowing for dawn while Dr. Dafoe washed up, eased his suspenders, donned his coat and drove back to his wifeless, book-filled home. He needed a little sleep, for later that day he expected another confinement.

En route he stopped at Father Daniel Routhier's. Father Routhier hurried over to sprinkle and cross the quintuplets officially for God.

Only God knew who was who and who was first in the clothesbasket. In the bustle of delivery Dr. Dafoe's helpers had misarranged the girls. Few days later, after Mrs. Dionne regained energy enough to think, she picked the names Cecile, Yvonne, Marie, Emily, Annette. A trained nurse tagged them thus, first come first named.

That first day, after feeding the chickens and older children, Papa Dionne telephoned the nearest newspaper, a weekly at Callander. Asked he timidly: "How much would it cost to have a piece put in the paper about five babies being born?'' That call brought reporters, photographers, nurses, an amusement promoter, gifts and, most important of all, an incubator, heated by a kerosene stove.

When the incubator, procured and delivered by the Chicago American and New York Evening Journal* reached Elzire Dionne's bare bedroom, one of the quintuplets was dying. Two others were blue. Dr. Dafoe gave them two drops of rum each and popped them into the incubator which was too small to hold all five. The two strongest remained in their roomy clothesbasket, warmed with hot water bottles. Every two hours the trained nurse fed the quintuplets two medicine-droppers of milk, corn syrup and water. The feeding took so long that as soon as the nurse finished with No. 5 she had to recommence with No. 1.

When the five Dionne girls had safely passed the fifth day, medical history was made. Never before, according to the records, had a full set of quintuplets survived that long. But Dr. Dafoe did not yet consider himself out of the woods. The weakest of the trio in the incubator again turned blue. She revived after two more drops of rum. She and her two companions then developed colic and constipation. Milk of magnesia and warm water enemas made them comfortable. Then all five turned yellow with jaundice. Dr. Dafoe overcame that, put them in the pink again.

As all five passed into their second week and approached full term condition, their chances for life became surer. All cried lustily, a good sign. Whispered the mother of the phenomenon, as her swollen legs subsided: ". . . Suis contente. ... If they die, they will go to Heaven, and next year perhaps, we will have another." In the next room waited lactating neighbors to give drachms of their superabundant milk to the quintuplets.

Outdoors, other neighbors scrawled a bilingual sign: "Pas de visiteurs, no visitors," and armed themselves with clubs to keep reporters, photographers and other strangers from disturbing the Dionnes. Dr. Dafoe sent the older five Dionne children, two of whom had developed colds, to live with friends. And Papa Ovila Dionne, who forgot to shave, wandered about, weeping: "Five of them. . . . I'm the sort of man they should keep in jail. . . . No bigger than my thumb . . . five more! ... I am not strong." Unsympathetic were his rustic French-Canadian friends, who chaffed him roundly, not neglecting to remind him that Ovila means ''little ram."

By long distance from Chicago one Ivan D. Spears, promoter, arranged a rendezvous with Papa Dionne about exhibiting the quintuplets at the Century of Progress. Promoter Spears flew to Orillia, Ont. Papa Dionne motored there with Father Routhier in the Parishhouse Ford. The offer: $100 per week as an option until the quintuplets can be put on show. Thereafter 30% of the gross side show receipts go to the Dionnes, another 7% to Father Routhier. But Dr. Dafoe objected: "They are not going to be moved from here."

Promoter Spears: "It is just a gamble." Papa Dionne wanted to back out.

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, 51, graduate of the University of Toronto, has been practicing at Callander for 26 years, is the district's medical officer and coroner. Obstetrics has always been a large part of his practice among the prolific French-Canadians. His youngest mother was 13, his oldest 63. Once he delivered a two-headed monster. One of his patients has borne 23 children, only one of whom has died, and that one, said Dr. Dafoe last week when he had an opportunity to relax in the wicker easy-chair in his library, "was dead at birth. It was one of twins. I remember I was alone with the mother at the time. The father had left the farmhouse to hunt for his horse that had run away."

Dr. Dafoe is positive that the Dionne quintuplets are identical, i. e., developed from a single ovum. That seemed incredible to many an obstetrician who telegraphed Dr. Dafoe for details of this rare and astounding example of multiple births.

Quintuplets occur once in about 57,000,000 births, if the "Rule of 87" holds out. W. W. Greulich, University of Colorado statistician, after examining tables of over 100,000,000 births in various countries, found that one twin birth occurs to approximately 87 single births, one triplet to about 7,569 (87 squared) singles, one quadruplet to about 658,503 (87 cubed) singles. Fifth power of 87 (for sextuplets) is about five billions. No one has been able to explain this apparent rule of 87.

Last autumn Latin-American papers reported the birth of sextuplets to a British Guiana woman. None lived. This report was not authenticated.

During the past 40 years reasonably authenticated records tell of four sextuplets. None lived.

Nor have any of the 30 cases of quintuplets reliably reported during the past five centuries lived long after birth. Longest lived, before the Dionne sisters hung up a new record, were those of a woman of Mayfield, Ky. After 4 days, 17 hr. Death began to pluck them off.

Stout-hearted Mme Elzire Dionne, with eleven offspring, holds no record for prolificness. One recorded woman produced 59 children in 27 labors (twins, triplets, quadruplets). Another bore 30 children in 22 years by her first husband, 14 in three years by her second husband (triplets, quintuplets and sextuplets). Noteworthy was Dr. Mary Austin, Civil War nurse, one of whose sisters bore 41 children, another 26. Dr. Austin herself bore 13 twins, 6 triplets--total, 44.

Fable probably is Ambroise Pare's report of an Italian woman who bore nine children at one birth, eleven at another.

Certainly fabulous is the history of Margaret, Countess of Holland who "in the year 1313 was brought to bed of 365 children at one and the same time."

*Canada charged $3.78 duty on its importation from Chicago.

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