THE SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OP MUTILATIONS. 445 



wife received a shock during- her first pregnancy upon seeing- a child 

 with a hare-lip, and she was constantly haunted with the idea that 

 her child mig-ht have the same malformation. She was delivered of 

 a child with a typical hare-lip : her next child had an upper lip with 

 a less-marked cleft; while the third possessed a red mark instead 

 of a cleft.' 



Now what can be said about such ' proofs ' ? We may probably 

 rightly conjecture that Burdach, who was in other respects a clever 

 physiologist, was in this subject somewhat credulous : but there are 

 also instances about which there is not the slightest doubt. I may 

 remind the reader of a case which has been told by no other than 

 the celebrated embryolog-ist, Carl Ernst von Baer l . 



'A lady was very much upset by a fire, which was visible at a 

 distance, because she believed that it was in her native place. As 

 the latter was seven German miles distant, the impression had 

 lasted a long time before it was possible to receive any certain 

 intelligence, and this long delay affected the mind of the lady so 

 greatly, that for some time afterwards she said that she constantly 

 saw the flames before her eyes. Two or three months afterwards she 

 was delivered of a daughter who had a red patch on the forehead 

 in the form of a flame. This patch did not disappear until the 

 child was seven years old.' Von Baer added, ' I mention this case 

 because I am well acquainted with it, for the lady was my own 

 sister, and because she complained of seeing flames before her eyes 

 before the birth of the child, and did not invent it afterwards as the 

 " cause " of the strange appearance.' 



Here then we have a case which is absolutely certain. Von 

 Baer's name is a guarantee for absolute accuracy. Why then has 

 science, in spite of this, rejected the whole idea of the efficacy of 

 ' maternal impressions ' ever since the appearance of the treatises by 

 Bergmann and Leuckart 2 ? 



Science has rejected this idea for many and conclusive reasons, 

 all of which I am not going to repeat here. In the first place, 

 because our maturer knowledge of the physiology of the body 

 shows that such a causal connexion between the peculiar characters 

 of the child and, if I may say so, the corresponding psychical im- 



1 See Burdach, 'Lehrbuch der Physiologic,' Bd. II, 1835-40, p. 128. 



2 See Handworterbuch der Physiologic von. Rud. Wagner, Artikel ' Zeugung,' von 

 Rud. Leuckart. 



