VIII.] SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. 457 



are a few undoubtedly genuine observations upon cases in 

 which some character in the child reminds us in a striking 

 manner of a deep psychical impression by which the mother 

 was strongly affected during pregnancy. 



Thus a trustworthy person told me of the following case. A 

 well-known medical authority cut his leg above tiic ankle with 

 a knife: his wife was present at the time and was much 

 frightened. She was then in the third month of pregnancy : 

 the child when born was found to have an unusual mark upon 

 the same place above the ankle. People almost forget nowa- 

 days the tenacity with which the idea of maternal impressions 

 was kept up until the middle of this century ; but it is only 

 necessary to read the received German text-book on physiology 

 of fifty years ago, viz. that of Burdach,in order to be convinced 

 of the accuracy of this statement. Not only does Burdach give 

 a number of 'conclusive' cases in man and even in animals 

 (cows and deer), but he also attempts to construct a theoretical 

 explanation of the supposed process. This is undertaken in 

 the following manner,—' Imagination influences the function of 

 organs ; ' but the function of the embryo is the ' tendency 

 towards development, and hence the influence [of maternal 

 imagination] can make itself felt only as variations in the mode 

 of development.' Thus by exchanging the conception of 

 function for that of the development of organs, Burdach comes 

 to the conclusion that ' homologous organs of the mother and 

 the embryo are in such connexion ' that when the former arc 

 disturbed a corresponding ' change in the formation of the 

 latter may arise.' 



It seems to be not without value for the appreciation of the 

 questions with which we are dealing to remember that the idea 

 of ' maternal impressions ' was only comparatively recently 

 believed to be a scientific theory, and that the proofs in support 

 of it were brought forward in form and language as scientific 

 proofs. In Burdach's book we even meet with detailed 

 'proofs' that violent mental shocks produced by maternal 

 impressions may not only exercise their influence upon one 

 but even upon several children born successively, although 

 with diminishing strength. 'A young wife received a shock 

 during her first pregnancy upon seeing a child with a hare-lip. 

 and she was constantly haunted with the idea that her child 



