Jordan: Prenatal Influences 



39 



know what we only hope or fear that we 

 may sometime know. 



There is no question of the trans- 

 mission of SyphiHs from parent to child, 

 for the minute animal organism, Spiro- 

 chaeta, which produces the disorgani- 

 zation of tissues known as Syphilis, 

 flows with the blood. In like manner, 

 the plant organism, Gonococcus, may 

 be implanted in children, most of those 

 bom blind receiving their affliction at 

 birth in the tender membranes of the 

 eyelids. 



STORIES incredible. 



But taking current stories, it is 

 scientifically incredible that Jessie Pome- 

 roy became a murderer because her. ^ 

 mother went with the lunch basket to 

 the butcher's shop. How medicines un- 

 successfully intended to produce abor- 

 tion may affect the unborn foetus is a 

 matter about which we know very little 

 and we may condemn the abominable 

 practice itself while admitting that the 

 resultant mischief is beyond our calcu- 

 lation. The "lady," who confessed 

 that the destructive disposition of her 

 little boy was "inherited from her own 

 desperate efforts to rid herself of him 

 before birth," is not a competent judge 

 of the relations of cause and effect. 

 More likely the boy was bad through 

 inheritance of traits of a bad mother, 

 and we have no right to assume that 

 it was her vicious action, not her 

 vicious temper, that left their stamp on 

 the boy's heredit}-. But it is still more 

 likely that the story itself is a pious in- 

 vention, told for the sake of the moral 

 it teaches. 



It is asserted, in connection with this 

 story, that "common people are kept 

 in ignorance of the causes which pro- 

 duce human monsters." Learned men 

 are also often ignorant in these matters, 

 until little by little they slowly find out 

 the truth, and this truth in general is, 

 "Like the Seed is the Harvest." Clean, 

 wholesome men and women lead clean 

 and wholesome lives. Such people 

 create children from sound and potent 

 germ cells, and to foster this condition 

 is the function of eugenics. Lapses 

 from sound living are usually traits of 

 people of unsound character. Unwhole- 



some traits exist in everyone, and some- 

 times these are transmitted or exag- 

 gerated in the children. 



A MODIFICATION FOR WORSE. 



A child is a mosaic of parental and 

 atavistic traits, one fotirth, on the 

 average, from each parent, others from 

 characters latent in the parent but 

 going farther back. We know of no 

 way by which we can foretell the com- 

 bination or modify it for the better by 

 any line of action. We may modify it 

 for the worse by intemperance, worry, 

 disease and in ways which prevent 

 normal development or normal nutrition. 



To have really good children, the 

 parents must be of good stock them- 

 selves. Bad fruit is borne mainly by 

 bad trees, and the inheritance of bad- 

 ness springs from inherent tendencies 

 or perversities, just as strong in 

 heredity where they are latent as 

 where they have been actually called 

 into action. It must not be forgotten 

 that strong characters are not those 

 without temptation to evil, but those 

 in which the better elements are 

 triumphant. 



Besides the myths of prenatal in- 

 fluence, we have also a series of myths, 

 more scientific in aspect, but equally 

 unfounded, under the name of Telegony. 

 The first mate of . a female animal is 

 supposed \inder this theory to affect 

 or infect all her future progeny. This 

 idea is probably without any scientific 

 foundation either in man or beasts. It 

 is based on a misinterpretation of a 

 single experiment. A mare once mated 

 to a zebra, bore afterwards to a horse 

 father a colt mth traces of dark bars 

 or stripes. But such bars occur among 

 horses not suspected of zebra parentage. 

 The original horse as a wild animal was 

 probabh' marked by dark stripes. In 

 the little Journal which suggested these 

 remarks, we read, "Ignorance is a 

 fruitful source of wrong in matters of 

 sex, hence the importance of pure 

 knowledge for all." This is all well 

 stated. It needs the further insis- 

 tence that no knowledge is pure tinless 

 it is true, and to be true it must be free 

 from all guess work, sentimentalism or 

 hysteria. 



