SECRETARY'S REPORT. 81 



tiori with the foreign animal, herself becoming a cross forever, inca- 

 pable of producing a pure calf of any breed.'' 



Dr. Harvey believes "that while as all allow, a portion of the 

 mother's blood is continually passing by absorption and assim- 

 ilation into the body of the foetus, in order to its nutrition and 

 development, a portion of the blood of the foetus is as constantly 

 passing in like manner into the body of the mother ; that as this 

 commingles there with the general mass of the mother's own blood, 

 it inoculates her system with the constitutional qualities of the 

 foetus, and that, as these qualities are in part derived to the foetus 

 from the male progenitor, the peculiarities of the latter are thereby 

 so ingrafted on the system of the female as to be communicable by 

 her to any offspring she may subsequently have by other males." 



In su[)port of this view, Mr. McGillivraj'- cites a case in which 

 there was presented unmistakable evidence that the organization of 

 the placenta admits the return of the venous blood to the mother ; 

 and Dr. Harvey, with much force, suggests that it is analagous to 

 the known fact that constitutional syphilis has been communicated 

 to a female who never had any of the primary symptoms. Regard- 

 ing the occurrence of such phenomena. Dr. Harvey under a later 

 date says : " since then I have learned that many among the agri- 

 cultural body in this district are familiar to a degree that is annoy- 

 ing to them with the facts then adduced in illustration of it, finding 

 that after breeding crosses, their cows though served with bulls of 

 their own breed yield crosses still or rather mongrels ; that they 

 were already impressed with the idea of contamination of blood as 

 the cause of the phenomenon ; that the doctrine so intuitively com- 

 mended itself to their minds as soon as stated, that they fancied 

 they were told nothing but what they knew before, so just is the 

 observation that truth proposed is much more easily perceived than 

 without such proposal is it discovered."* 



Dr. Carpenter, speaking of phenomena analagous to what are 

 here alluded to, says : 



" Some of these cases appear referable to the strong impression 

 left by the first male parent upon the female ; but there are others 

 which seem to render it more likely that the blood of the female 

 has imbibed from that of the foetus, through the placental circula- 

 tion, some of the attributes which the latter has derived from its 

 male parent, and that the female may communicate these, with 



* Edinburgh Journal Medical Science, 1849. 



