GENERATION. 



475 



the foetus or its coverings during pregnancy. 

 So also we can understand that any violent 

 affection of the mind of a pregnant woman, in 

 so far as it tends to derange the bodily func- 

 tions, may produce some effect on the nutrition 

 of the child. 



Some contagious diseases pass from the mo- 

 ther to the child in utero. Syphilis and small- 

 pox may be mentioned as those the effects of 

 which have been most frequently observed.* 

 Typhous fever, on the other hand, is said rarely 

 to affect the child. We know also that severe 

 affections of the mother may cause the death of 

 the child, and its premature expulsion or abor- 

 tion. According to Hausmann, the effect of 

 variations of the external atmosphere is visible in 

 the unusual number of blind colts and hydro- 

 cephalic pigs which are born after a wet sum- 

 mer. Malformations of the foetus of birds have 

 been artificially produced by external injuries 

 and altered position of the eggs during incuba- 

 tion, f The transmission to the child of the 

 effects of chemical poisons taken by the mother 

 has also been observed ; but in all the foregoing 

 the effect of the injury has been more or less 

 general ; and there is no sufficient reason to 

 conclude from them that a particular impres- 

 sion on the mind of the mother is capable of 

 producing physical injury, or a particular de- 

 formity in one or other of the organs of the 

 fcetus. 



A vague notion is entertained by some that a 

 certain influence is exerted by the hen or other 

 bird on the eggs that they incubate, by which 

 the qualities of the progeny are modified. But 

 we must observe that hereditary resemblances 

 are preserved in artificial incubation without 

 the hen ; and although we are disposed to ad- 

 mit that the female bird incubates its eggs with 

 an instinctive care and perfection that art can 

 rarely imitate, we are exceedingly sceptical as 

 to the possibility of any other secret influence 

 from the oviparous mother to its offspring 

 once the eggs have left the body ; and the 

 attempt to support the theory of imagination by 

 this opinion is an explanation of the obscurum 

 per obscurius. 



Were it possible to separate the better authen- 

 ticated from the more fanciful relations of the 

 effects of the mother's imagination, or to select 

 those instances only in which the impression 

 on the mind of the mother had been carefully 

 noted before the birth of the child, we might 

 expect in some degree to be able to free this 

 question from the falsity and prejudice which 

 obscures it. But such a separation we believe 

 to be impossible, and we have therefore re- 

 solved to enumerate shortly some of the more 

 remarkable cases taken at random, J from which 



* In reference to this, it is an interesting circum- 

 stance that the child is affected with small-pox 

 some time after the mother, as if the contagion had 

 taken the same time to operate as it does in passing 

 between two persons. 



t As in Geoffory St. Hilaire's experiments, which 

 the author has more than once repeated with a si- 

 milar result. 



i From Burdach's Physiologic, B. ii. and from a 

 talented Refutation of the Doctrine of the Imagina- 



we think the reader will best be able to judge 

 what value or faith is to be attached to the facts 

 now under consideration. 



In a certain number of these cases we are 

 told that an injury of an organ in the mother 

 causes a similar injury in a corresponding part 

 of the child's body; as in the following ex- 

 amples. 



1 . A cow killed by the blow of a hatchet is 

 found pregnant of a fcetus with a bruise on the 

 same place of the forehead. 



2. The same was the case with the young one 

 of a hind that had been shot. 



3. A pregnant cat which had had its tail 

 trodden on bore five young, in four of which 

 the tail was similarly wounded. 



4. A woman bitten on the pudenda by a dog 

 bore a boy having a wound of the glans penis. 

 This boy suffered from epilepsy, and when the 

 fits came on during sleep was frequently heard 

 to call aloud, " the dog bites me ! " There 

 are other similar cases on record. 



5. A pregnant woman walking with a friend 

 has her head knocked violently against her 

 friend's, and shortly afterwards bears twins, 

 which are joined together by the foreheads. 



6. A gentlewoman who was cut for rupture 

 in the groin during her pregnancy, bears a boy 

 having a large scar in the same region, which 

 he bore for thirty years afterwards. 



The injuries of others operating on the ima- 

 gination of the mother may affect the structure 

 of the child : thus 



7. A woman who was suddenly alarmed by 

 seeing her husband come home with one side 

 of his face swollen and distorted by a blow, 

 bears a child (a girl) with a purple swelling 

 covering the forehead, nose, &c. of the same 

 side. 



8. A child is born with hare-lip, which was 

 caused by the mother's frequently seeing a 

 child with the same deformity during her preg- 

 nancy. 



9. A mother seeing a criminal broke upon 

 the wheel, bears an idiot child, of which the 

 bones are similarly broken. 



10. A woman seeing a person in an epileptic 

 fit brings forth a child which is subject to 

 epilepsy. 



11. A lady in London, who is frightened by 

 a beggar presenting the stump of an arm to her, 

 bears a child wanting a hand. 



12. A child is born with its head pierced, 

 in consequence of its mother having seen a 

 man run through the body with a sword. 



13. A woman is forced to be present at the 

 opening of a calf by the butcher. She after- 

 wards bears a child with all the bowels hang- 

 ing out of the abdomen. This woman was at 

 the time of the accident aware that something 

 was going wrong in the womb. 



14. A similar misfortune happened to the 

 child of another woman, who was imprudent 

 enough to witness the disembowelling of a pig 

 during her pregnancy. 



tionists, by Dr. Blundell, of London. Professor 

 Burdacb, we may remark, is inclined to adopt the 

 belief. 



