458 SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. [VIII. 



might have the same malformation. She was delivered of a 

 child with a typical hare-lip : her next child had an upper lip 

 with a less-marked cleft ; while the third possessed a red mark 

 instead of a cleft.' 



Now what can be said about such ' proofs ' ? We may 

 probably rightl}' conjecture that Burdach, who was in other 

 respects a clever physiologist, was in this subject somewhat 

 credulous : but there are also instances about which there is 

 not the slightest doubt. • I may remind the reader of a case 

 which has been told by no other than the celebrated em- 

 bryologist, Carl Ernst von Baer \ 



* A lady was very much upset by a fire, which was visible at 

 a distance, because she believed that it was in her native place. 

 As the latter was seven German miles distant, the impression 

 had lasted a long time before it was possible to receive 

 any certain intelligence, and this long delay affected the mind 

 of the lady so greatly, that for some time afterwards she 

 said that she constantly saw the flames before her eyes. Two 

 or three months afterwards she was delivered of a daughter 

 who had a red patch on the forehead in the form of a 

 flame. This patch did not disappear until the child was seven 

 years old.' Von Baer added, ' I mention this case because I 

 am well acquainted with it, for the lady was my own sister, 

 and because she complained of seeing flames before her eyes 

 before the birth of the child, and did not invent it afterwards as 

 the "cause" of the strange appearance.' 



Here then we have a case which is absolutely certain. Von 

 Baer's name is a guarantee for absolute accuracy. Why then 

 has science, in spite of this, rejected the whole idea of the 

 efficacy of ' maternal impressions ' ever since the appearance of 

 the treatises by Bergmann and Leuckarf-? 



Science has rejected this idea for many and conclusive 

 reasons, all of which I am not going to repeat here. In the 

 first place, because our maturer knowledge of the physiology 

 of the body shows that such a causal connexion between the 

 peculiar characters of the child and, if I may say so, the corre- 

 sponding psychical impressions of the mother, is a supposition 



' See Burdach, ' Lehrbuch der Physiologic,' Bd. II, 1835-40, p. 128. 

 ^ Sec HandwOrtcrbuch der Physiologic von Rud. Wagner, Artikel 

 • Zeugung,' von Rud. Lcuckart. 



