164 THE CONTEOL OF LIFE 



known ; so also of ante-natal infection with microbic 

 disease, such as syphilis. 



(c) The third thing is that the relation between the 

 unborn child and its mother is extraordinarily subtle. 

 No one should dogmatise concerning " the mysteri- 

 ous wireless telegraphy of ante-natal life," to use Dr. 

 J. W. Ballantyne's apt phrase. On the whole, the 

 child gets the best of it, there being, for instance, very 

 effective arrangements for safeguarding it from many 

 of the disturbances that may upset the mother. But 

 there is good reason for believing that the mother is by 

 no means without her physiological reward. 



According to a modern view, well represented by 

 Professor Bar of Paris (Legons de pathologie ohstetri- 

 cahy 1907), the intricate placental union between the 

 unborn child and the mother secures a harmonious 

 partnership — a literal 'symbiosis,' a term used in bio- 

 logy for an intimate internal mutually beneficial part- 

 nership, like that between Eadiolarians and their 

 companion Algse, or between certain Fungi and Algae 

 to form Lichens. The point is that the child is not 

 so much a parasite on its mother as a paying guest. 

 In the great majority of cases the state of pregnancy 

 is a state of health, but it is health under a great strain, 

 and the mutually beneficial symbiosis may readily 

 sink into a parasitism prejudicial to the mother's 

 vigour. To quote a great authority. Dr. J. W. Bal- 

 lantyne of Edinburgh, who accepts the idea of sym- 

 biosis with some provisos, "mother and unborn infant 

 are not antagonistic in this great matter of reproduc- 



