68 



beholding a well-filled pocket book — "It's mine" — as conclusive proof of 

 the wallet" s collective ownership. 



V. Non-selective maternal impression; where a mother succeeds in mark- 



ing both ol the twins. 

 These cases are extremely uncommon, for as we shall see, maternal 

 influence appears to be extremely rare and twins occur about one in 

 eighty-eight births. I am therefore glad to report as an illustration, a 

 case given by Wiistnei. He tells of a woman who was accustomed to 

 taking her nap witli her forehead against a porcelain stove. She gave 

 birth to twins and it was found that each had a rather long impression 

 running up and down on the forehead. The case is not reported in suffi- 

 cient detail to comment on it. I present it for its face value, together with 

 the suggestion that a mark down tlie forehead of each of the twins would 

 be likely to make a skeptic examine the liirtli caiial of the mother for a 

 bony prominence in the pelvis. 



VI. Non-selective type of maternal impression ; where a mother only suc- 



ceeded in marking one <if the twins. 

 These cases must also be uncommon and I liave found no instance 

 £ei>orted by the champions for maternal impression either because they 

 do not occur at all or beciuise they do not strengthen the cause. I am of 

 the opinion that the latter is the case; for abnormality in one twin is not 

 particularly infre<juent. I can, however, call attention to a case where the 

 twins did not succeed in marking a single l)aby — tlie notorious example 

 of the Balzac twins — a variety of Siamese — and one of them, I forget 

 which, gave birth to a normal baby. 



VII. Threatened maternal intluence ; where the mother is profoundly 

 shocked and the infant refuses to register any marking whatever. 



It may be remembered that the Messina disaster was calculated to 

 upset the routine of that town, and yet after the earthquake only one 

 abnormal child was born of the women who were pregnant at the time, 

 and that in a woman who had been pinned down for many hours with u 

 beam over her abdomen. Indeed, it was reported tliat a number of women 

 that had alwrted spontaneously in previous pregnancies were so severely 

 shocked that they carried their children to term. Rischoff could not dem- 

 onstrate a single case of maternal impression in ll.OCXl confinements; and 

 William Hunter "during many years every woman in a large London 

 lying-in hospital was asked before her confinement whether anything had 



