948 OF GENERATION. 



and have all been alike successful. It is unquestionable that, in all such cases, 

 the benefit derived is in direct proportion to the faith of the sufferer in the 

 means employed ; and thus we see that a couple of bread pills will produce 

 copious purgation, and a dose of red poppy syrup will serve as a powerful narco- 

 tic (as has happened within the personal knowledge of the Author), if the 

 patient have been led to feel a sufficiently confident expectation of the respective 

 results of these medicaments. 1 This state of confident expectation, however, 

 may operate for evil, no less than for good. A fixed belief that a mortal dis- 

 ease had seized upon the frame, or that a particular operation or system of treat- 

 ment would prove unsuccessful, has been in numerous instances (there is no 

 reason to doubt) the direct cause of a fatal result. And thus the morbid feel- 

 ings of the hypochondriac, who is constantly directing his attention to his own 

 fancied ailments, tend to induce real disorder in the action of the organs which 

 are supposed to be affected. In the same category, too, may be placed those' 

 instances (to which alone any value is to be attached), wherein a strong and 

 persistent impression upon the mind of a mother has appeared to produce a 

 corresponding effect upon the development of the foetus in utero. In this case, 

 the effect (if admitted to be really exerted) must be produced upon the maternal 

 blood, and transmitted through it to the foetus ; since there is no nervous com- 

 munication between the parent and offspring. There is no difficulty, however, 

 in understanding how this may occur, after what has been stated on a former 

 occasion ( 203) of the influence of minute alterations in the condition of the 

 blood, in determining local alterations of nutrition. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



OF GENERATION. 



1. General Character of the Function. 



954. HAVING now passed in review the various operations which are con- 

 cerned in maintaining the life of the individual, we have next to proceed to 

 those which are destined to the perpetuation of the race, by the production of 

 successive generations of similar beings. In Man and the higher animals, this 

 function is performed in only one method ; namely, by the development of an 

 ovum in the Female, which, when fertilized by the spermatozoon of the Male, 

 gives origin within itself to a new being ; the embryo, if supplied with the re- 

 quisite nourishment, warmth, &c., gradually evolving itself into the likeness of 

 its parents. This process appears, as will presently be shown, to be performed 

 in a manner essentially the same, not only throughout the Animal kingdom, but 

 through the Vegetable kingdom also. But among Plants, and the lower tribes 

 of Animals, we find an additional method of propagation; for, without any 



i It is commonly said that these effects are produced by the imagination; but this only 

 serves to induce the belief that the sham remedy is one of real efficacy ; and it is the state 

 of "expectant attention" which is the immediate operating agent, and which is necessary 

 to the result. In whatever mode this can be induced, the effect will be the same. Thus 

 Dr. Haygarth, of Bath (in conjunction with Mr. Richard Smith, of Bristol), tested the value 

 of the "metallic tractors," by substituting two pieces of wood painted in imitation of them, 

 or even a pair of tenpenny nails disguised with sealing-wax, or a couple of slate-pencils ; 

 which they found to possess all the virtues that were claimed for the real instruments, 

 because the state of "expectant attention" was equally induced by either. 



