TERATOLOGY. 



943 



reasoning, for the theory of the mental im- 

 pressions, which was so readily adopted in the 

 barbarous middle ages, as a mode of saving 

 poor and innocent women from torture and 

 stake, finds even in the present day more ad- 

 vocates than might have been expected. Of 

 this I was convinced at the Congress of 

 Naturalists at Aix-la-Chajjjelle in 1847, and in 

 the Report of the Transactions of the Sc/i ivei- 

 zerisc/it-n Nttturf. Gescllsdidft zu Chur y 29, 30, 

 31 Juli, 1844, in which the affected mind of 

 the pregnant woman is said to produce a 

 mysterious effect on the foetus, and that the 

 medium by which this influence is com- 

 municated may be the hearing as well as the 

 sight ! To crown all these absurdities, we see 

 mentioned in Rust, Magas'm y B. xxi. S. 26 1 ., 

 that a woman gave birth to a child with im- 

 perfect bones, which is attributed to her 

 having been present, before her pregnancy, at 

 the execution of a criminal by breaking on 

 the wheel. To all these fantastical considera- 

 tions I oppose the following arguments : 



a. That malformations seldom, or perhaps 

 never, agree with apprehensions or fears 

 a priori of pregnant women (G. Vrolik, 

 T. Zimmer, J. J. Plenck, and Burdach). On 

 the contrary, it often happens that a woman 

 who has once procreated a malformation, and 

 is continually troubled by the fear of another 

 similar sad occurrence, may become the happy 

 mother of a second well-formed child. 



b. That the foetus, even when a germ, is 

 quite independent ; transferred from the ovary 

 into the uterus, it needs for its developement 

 a material intercourse with the maternal body, 

 but no organic connection ; for which reason 

 it'can be formed as well without as within the 

 uterus, as in extra-uterine pregnancy ; that it 

 stands in no connection, either vascular or 

 nervous, with the body of the mother, and 

 that therefore it is improbable that her mental 

 condition can have any influence whatever 

 upon the form of the foetus. 



c. That malformations occur likewise among 

 the inferior animals, insects, testaceous ani- 

 mals, echinodermata, in which the develope- 

 ment of psychical life is very imperfect, and 

 the oviparous generation of which must pre- 

 serve the young from the influence of dis- 

 ordered maternal imagination. 



d. That in the case of twins, as the ace- 

 phali specially show, one child may be mal- 

 formed and the other in perfect condition, 

 notwithstanding they were both exposed to 

 the same influences. 



e. That more deeply situated organs, the 

 very existence of which may be unknown to 

 the pregnant woman, may be malformed ; as 

 for instance, the heart, the intestinal tube, &c. 



If now, on all these grounds, 1 exclude the 

 mental impressions of pregnant women from 

 the aetiology of malformations, I do not mean 

 to deny the influence which by her somatic 

 condition the mother may exercise upon the 

 foetus. Thus, if in consequence of mental 

 agitation, her body were to suffer a violent 

 shock, this might have a prejudicial influence 

 on the material transmission which takes place 



between her and the foetus, and the latter might 

 thereby become morbidly affected. There are 

 instances of its being the subject of intermittent 

 fever (P. liussell) ; of sudden death occa- 

 sioned by frightful agitation of the mother 

 (Wienholdt) ; of jaundice communicated by 

 the mother (Kerckring) ; of small-pox (Jen- 

 ner, Montgomery, Friedlander) ; of syphilis 

 and scarlet fever (R. Lee), all derived from 

 the mother. But all this is entirely different 

 from the effect of mental impressions. It is a 

 material result, easily conceived, and of which 

 physiologists need no further explanation. 



2. A second cause of malformation of the 

 foetus is sought in external injury suffered by 

 women during their pregnancy. Meckel goes 

 so far as to reject this entirely. In some de- 

 formities, for instance, in hi/drops vcntriculo- 

 nun cerebri, the effect of external injury is 

 easily proved. 



3. A third cause is attributed to diseases 

 of the ovurn and of the foetus. Simpson 

 (Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 

 127., April, 1836, and Gazette Medicale de 

 Paris, Nov. 1836, p. 393.) has described an 

 acute and chronic form of placentitis, to which 

 ought to be ascribed all those singular ex- 

 udations which attach themselves to the foetus 

 as pseudo-membranes. Fig. 595. gives a spe- 

 cimen of adhesion of the placenta to the head 

 of a foetus deformed by urania. 



Fig. 595. 



Ectopia cordis and adhesion of llie Placenta. 

 Infg. 596. a pseudo-membrane passes to 



