ABNORMAL IMPRESSIONS. 253 



once formed may be absorbed under the influence 

 of nervous shock or hysteria. Either view is non- 

 sense." 



Dr. David Starr Jordan, in "Foot Notes to 

 Evolution," on page 134, says: "In the current.. _. , 

 literature of hysterical ethics we find all sorts of Views. 

 exhortations to mothers to do this and not do 

 that, to cherish this and avoid that, on account 

 of its supposed effects upon the coming progeny. 

 Long lists of cases have been reported illustrating 

 the law of prenatal influences. Most -of these 

 records serve only to induce skepticism. Many 

 of these are mere coincidences, some are unveri- 

 fiable, some grossly impossible, and some read 

 like the certificates of patent medicine. There 

 is an evident desire to make a case rather 

 than to tell the truth. The whole matter 

 is much in need of serious study, and 

 the entire record of alleged facts must be 

 set aside to make an honest beginning. Dr. 

 Weissmann ridicules it all and believes that all ^350^^^ 

 forms of mother's marks, prenatal influences 

 and the like, are relics of mediaeval superstition. 

 Other authorities of equal rank, as Henry Fair- 

 field and Osborn, believe that these supposed in-Osbornand 

 fluences exist and are occasionally made evident. le * 

 Doubtless most of the current stories are products 

 of self-deception or plain lying. Probably the 

 period of gestation is too short for peculiar 

 nervous states to produce far-reaching changes 

 in hereditary endowments. On the other hand, Ridicule versus 

 doubt and ridicule are not argument, and there Ar8uxncnt * 

 may be some reality in influences in which the 

 world has so long believed ; but these phenomena, 



