69 



specially affected her mind, and the answer was written down, and it so 

 happened that in no instance could a coincidence be traced between the 

 woman's answer and any abnormal structure ; but when she knew the 

 nature of the structure, she frequently suggested some new cause." To 

 this I would add a statement from Mauclerc : "Do we not know how 

 shy Women are always in confessing their Longings? They will never 

 own upon the Spot, that they longed for such a Thing. It must be pre- 

 sented before them as if we knew nothing of their Desire. And, if they 

 are so unwilling to confess their Longing and Affections before the Ef- 

 fect, why may they not be sometimes as backward to confess them after 

 Y.'ards? Certainly some Women are such unaccountable Creatures, that 

 no more Stress can be laid on their Denials, than their Affirmations." (I 

 would state the gentleman has been dead over a centurj-.) 



Mauclerc attacked Blondel's famous treatise and based his contention 

 on the Art of Criticism. He says : "All that lies upon me is to shew, 

 that he (Dr. Hlondel) has not proved his Negative." This argument holds 

 today ; for, as I liave said, without the facts we liave nothing to disprove. 

 While nothing can be brought forward to demonstrate that a pregnant 

 woman acttially does influence her unborn child, it can be definitely proven 

 that the child does affect the mother. Now, then, based on this fact, and 

 with the idea that six equals half a dozen, if I propose the doctrine of 

 fotnl impression, I can defy anyone to prove me wrong — provided of course 

 that any intelligent person will enter into argument with me. Further, 

 this pseudo-hypothesis is much stronger than tlie maternal impression 

 doctrine. If a child through congenital defect has hare-lip or what yon 

 will (and I can show that these defects arise spontaneously in egg-laying 

 animals) ; and I can also show that the metabolism of the child (or call 

 it what you like) influences the mother, then with justice I can also infer 

 that carrying a child with a given defect will make the mother more sus- 

 ceptible to being shocked by a creature having a similar abnormality. 



It is strange how difficult it is to think a new thought. I constructed 

 an Illustrative example for my hygiene class. "If a pregnant woman goes 

 to the sideshow and is frightened at beholding a two-headed steer and 

 later gives birth to a two-headed child, the biological question is, "What 

 did the cow see?" I can not replace this with an authentic case reported 

 by Wilstnei. It seems that a woman gave birth to a child with a sort of 

 tumor in the pelvic region. Tlie child died on its attempted removal, and 



