[A pregnancy of 10-years duration].
In January 1813 the peasant woman Randi Jonsdatter from Kvikne in Hedmark had been pregnant for 10 years. One day she slipped in her cattle-shed, and soon after "gave birth" to the remains of a decomposed stone child (lithopaedion) through an incision above her navel. The woman, who was about 50 years old, lived for many years after the "birth". This is the earliest known Norwegian case of a lithopaedion, a dead calcified fetus from an extra uterine pregnancy. The case is documented in a letter written only three months after the event. This letter is now archived in The Norwegian National Library's Manuscript Collection. The case was also published by the physician Christian Stengel at the Røros mines, in the medical periodical EYR: in 1827. Stone children occur very rarely. Only two other cases, from 1858 and 1885, are known in Norway.
Bjerke
Ernst
E
Forum for universitetshistorie Universitetet i Oslo Postboks 1008 Blindern 0315 Oslo. e.h.bjerke@ffu.uio.no
D002114:Calcinosis / Q000266:history; D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus / Q000473:pathology; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008373:Manuscripts as Topic / Q000266:history; D009664:Norway; D011247:Pregnancy; D011269:Pregnancy, Abdominal / Q000266:history*