12 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



wither disagreeably, dining-rooms could rarely boast of much 

 ventilation, and lamps burning olive oil and provided with no 

 chimneys would add odor as well as heat to apartments. Among 

 modern peoples it is the Italian that seems to be most sensitive 

 about having cut flowers in a room. 30 Some Italians of the south 

 believe that the scent poisons the blood and causes fever. 31 An 

 Italian woman who is about to bear a child is especially guarded 

 against the odor of fresh flowers and artificial floral perfumes. 32 

 They are likely, it is believed, to make her miscarry. Yet, cur- 

 iously enough, a pregnant woman may be observed walking about 

 in public with leaves of centaury, the matricaria, stuck in her 

 nostrils in the belief that they act as a calmative and prevent 

 spasms. 



During the trying period of pregnancy it is natural enough 

 for the more ignorant among Italian women to resort to adepts 

 in quackery and superstitious practices who can still be found 

 readily enough in backward communities. On the advice of some 

 old crone, the local repository of traditional lore, they may act 

 quite as an ancestress of theirs would have done two thousand 

 years ago and employ for safety or for relief devices of a similar 

 occult character. Roman remedies and magic ways to safeguard 

 a pregnant woman against miscarriage are often mentioned, and 

 some of them must have stirred the risibility of the more intelligent 

 and better educated people of Rome as much as they do our own. 

 We wonder, for instance, how many wives would actually wear 

 suspended from their neck in a container made of antelope skin 

 some white flesh from the breast of a hyaena, the genitals of a 

 stag, and seven of its hairs, 33 or would apply an ointment con- 

 sisting of the ashes of burnt hedgehogs mixed with oil. 34 A 

 pregnant woman is especially cautioned against stepping over a 

 raven's egg lest she miscarry by the mouth. To eat one causes 

 the same result. Even having eggs of this bird under the same 

 roof makes delivery difficult. Back of all this, is, of course, the 

 vulgar belief that ravens couple or lay by means of the beak. 35 



One of the most remarkable safeguards proposed for the period 

 of pregnancy of which I know is the use of what the ancients 

 called an eagle-stone. According to beliefs of which Pliny the 

 Elder has preserved the record, certain eagles use in the con- 

 struction of their aeries this a'etites or gangites. 36 He speaks of it 



