476 



GENERATION. 



The mere description of an event may affect 

 the child, as in the following curious case. 



15. A woman who had listened with con- 

 siderable interest to a description of the ope- 

 ration of circumcision bears a child with the 

 foreskin split up and turned back ! 



16. A woman who sees another affected with 

 prolapsus uteri bears a child affected with the 

 same disease. 



The examples of the effect of sudden fright, 

 disgust, anger, joy, &c. are very numerous. 



1 7. A lady absent from home is alarmed by 

 seeing a great fire in the direction of and near 

 her own house ; and some months afterwards 

 bears a female child having the distinct mark 

 of a flame on her forehead. 



18. A pregnant woman frighted by her hus- 

 band pursuing her with a drawn sword, bears 

 a child with a large wound in the forehead. 



19. A man who had personated a devil 

 (or satyr according to other authorities) goes to 

 bed in his assumed dress, and his wife, being 

 then pregnant, afterwards bears a child having 

 horns, cloven feet, &c. 



20. A mother frighted by the firing of a gun 

 has a child wounded as by a gun-shot. 



21. A pregnant woman falls into a violent 

 passion at not being able to obtain a particular 

 piece of meat at a butcher's shop ; she bleeds 

 at the nose, and wiping the blood from her lip, 

 afterwards bears a child wanting the lip. 



22. A woman two months before being 

 brought to bed is alarmed by hearing a report 

 that a neighbour had murdered his wife by a 

 wound on the breast, and bears a child with a 

 similar wound. 



23. A child is born with the hair of one 

 side black, that of the other white: competent 

 judges declared at the time that both sides 

 would have been white, but for the circum- 

 stance that the mother had carried a heavy sack 

 of coals during her pregnancy. 



24. A woman frighted by the sudden ap- 

 pearance of a negro brings forth a child with 

 various black marks. 



25. A mother is suddenly frighted by a 

 lizard jumping into her breast, and afterwards 

 gives birth to a child having a fleshy excre- 

 scence exactly like a lizard growing from the 

 breast, to which it adhered by the head or 

 neck. 



26. A child has a face exactly like a frog's, 

 from the mother having held a frog in her hand 

 about the time of conception. 



27. The remarkable resemblance of a wo- 

 man to an ape was fully accounted for by her 

 mother having been much pleased with one of 

 these animals when with child of her. 



The effect of the attentive contemplation of 

 pictures, statues, &c. by pregnant women is 

 worthy of notice. 



28. A child is born covered with hairs in 

 consequence of the mother having been in the 

 habit of beholding a picture of St. John the 

 Baptist. 



29. A woman gives birth to a child covered 

 with hair and having the claws of a bear, from 

 her constantly beholding the images and pic- 

 tures of bears hung up every where in the 



dwelling of the Ursini family, to which she 

 belonged. It is not stated by the Author of 

 Waverley, whether any thing of the kind ever 

 happened in the Bradvvardine family. 



30. A woman contemplating, too earnestly 

 as it appears, a picture of St. Pius, has after- 

 wards a child bearing a striking resemblance to 

 an old man. 



31. The tyrant Dionysius was aware of the 

 effect of pictures ; for he hung a beautiful 

 picture in his wife's chamber, in order to im- 

 prove his children's looks. 



32. Two girls (twins) were born with their 

 bodies joined together, their mother having 

 during her pregnancy been in the habit of at- 

 tentively contemplating two sacred images 

 similarly placed. 



33. A child is born with its skin all mottled 

 in colour from the mother having made a visit 

 to St. Winifred's Well, and seeing the red peb- 

 bles there. 



34. Another child was marked on the face, 

 in consequence of the mother having worn 

 black patches. 



The longings and depraved appetites to 

 which pregnant women are liable are occa- 

 sionally the causes of marks and deformities 

 in their children. 



35. There are a great many instances in 

 which the longing of the mother after straw- 

 berries, grapes, cherries, peaches, and other 

 fruits has caused the growth of tumours in the 

 children exactly resembling in each the fruit 

 that was wished for, 



36. A woman who had longed for a lobster 

 brings forth a child much resembling one of 

 these animals. 



37. Another woman had a female child, the 

 head of which was like a shell-fish (a bivalve, 

 which opened and shut as a mouth), which 

 proceeded from the mother's having had a strong 

 desire for mussels at one time of her preg- 

 nancy. 



38. A pregnant woman longs, or has a great 

 desire to bite the shoulder of a baker who 

 happens to pass. The husband, wishing to 

 humour this extraordinary fancy, hires the baker 

 to submit to be bitten. The mother makes 

 two bites, but of such a kind that the baker 

 will not submit to more; and some time after- 

 wards she is brought to bed of three children, 

 one dead and two living. 



39. A case of spina bifida near the sacrum 

 is explained by the mother's having wished for 

 fritters, and not obtaining them, having ap- 

 plied her hand (we know not with what object) 

 to a corresponding place in her own body. 



The impression on the fancy of the mother 

 may be made before conception has taken 

 place: thus 



40 A woman, whose children had pre- 

 viously been healthy, six weeks before con- 

 ception is suddenly frighted by a beggar who 

 presents a stumped arm and a wooden leg, and 

 threatens to embrace her: the next child had 

 only one stump leg and two stump arms. 



The impression on the fancy may extend to 

 the product of several successive conceptions. 



41. A young woman frighted in her first 



