The Editor: Maternal Impressions 



515 



actually occur. Indeed, we now believe 

 that most errors of development, such 

 as lead to the production of great 

 physical defects, are due to some cause 

 within the embryo itself, and that most 

 of them take place in the first two or 

 three weeks, when the mother is by no 

 means likely to influence the course of 

 embryological development by her men- 

 tal attitude toward it, for the very good 

 reason that she knows nothing about it. 



Unless she be immured or isolated 

 from the world, nearly every expectant 

 mother sees many sights of the kind 

 that, according to popular tradition, 

 cause "marks." Why is it that results 

 are so few? Why is it that women 

 doctors and nurses, who are constantly 

 exposed, to unpleasant sights, have 

 children that do not differ from those 

 of other mothers .' 



Darwin, who knew how to think 

 scientifically, saw that this is the logical 

 line of proof or disproof. When Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, the botanist and geol- 

 ogist who was his closest friend , wrote of 

 a supposed case of maternal impression, 

 one of his kinswomen having insisted 

 that a mole which appeared on her child 

 was the effect of fright upon herself for 

 having, before the birth of the child, 

 blotted with sepia a copy of Turner's 

 "Liber Studioriun" that had been lent 

 her with special injunctions to be care- 

 ful, Darwin^ replied: "I should be very 

 much obliged, if at any future or leisure 

 time you could tell me on what you 

 ground your doubtful belief in imagina- 

 tion of a mother affecting her offspring. 

 I have attended to the several state- 

 ments scattered about, but do not 

 believe in more than accidental coinci- 

 dences. W. Hunter told my father, 

 then in a lying-in hospital, that in many 

 thousand cases he had asked the 

 mother, before her confinement, whether 

 anything had affected her imagination, 

 and recorded the answers ; and absolutely 

 not one case came right, though, when 

 the child was anything remarkable, 

 they afterwards made the cap to fit." 



Any doctor who has handled many 

 maternity cases can call to mind 

 instances where every condition was 

 present, to perfection, for the produc- 



tion of a maternal impression, on the 

 time honored lines. None occurred. 

 Most mothers can, if they give the 

 matter careful consideration, duplicate 

 this experience from their own. Whv is 

 it that results are so rare? 



THE SEARCH FOR COINCIDENCE 



That Darwin gave the true explana- 

 tion of a great many of the alleged 

 cases is perfectly clear to us. When the 

 child is born with any peculiar character- 

 istic, the mother hunts for some experi- 

 ence in the preceding months that 

 might explain it. If she succeeds in 

 finding any experience of her own at 

 all resembling in its effects the effect 

 which the infant shows, she considers 

 she has proved causation, has established 

 a good case of pre-natal influence. 



It is not causation; it is coincidence. 



If the prospective mother plays or 

 sings a great deal, with the idea of 

 giving her child a musical endowment, 

 and the child actually turns out to have 

 musical talent, the mother at once 

 recalls her yearning that such might 

 be the case; her assiduous practice 

 which she hoped would be of benefit 

 to her child. She immediately decides 

 that it did benefit him, and she becomes 

 a convinced witness to the belief in 

 pre-natal culture. Has she not herself 

 demonstrated it" 



She has not. But if she would exam- 

 ine the child's heredity, she would 

 probably find a taste for music running 

 in the germ-plasm. Her study and 

 practice had not the slightest effect on 

 this hereditary disposition; it is equally 

 certain that the child would have been 

 born with a taste for music if its mother 

 had devoted eight hours a day for nine 

 months to ctiltivating thoughts of 

 hatred for the musical profession and 

 repugnance for everything that possesses 

 rh\i:hm or harmony. 



It necessarily follows, then, that 

 attempts to influence the development 

 of the child, physically or mentally, 

 through "pre-natal culture," are doomed 

 to disappointment. The child develops 

 along the lines of the potentialities 

 which existed in the two germ cells 

 that united to become its origin. The 



4 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I, p. 302, New York, 1897. The letter is dated 1844. 



