ii.] PROCESSES IN HEREDITY. 15 



of acquired faculties requires to be closely criticized. 

 For example, a woman who was sober becomes a 

 drunkard. Her children born during the period of her 

 sobriety are said to be quite healthy ; her subsequent chil- 

 dren are said to be neurotic. The objections to accepting 

 this as a valid instance in point are mauy. The woman's 

 tissues must have been drenched with alcohol, and the 

 unborn infant alcoholised during; all its existence in that 

 state. The quality of the mother's milk would be bad. 

 The surroundings of a home under the charge of a 

 drunken woman would be prejudicial to the health of 

 a growing child. No wonder that it became neurotic. 

 Again, a large number of diseases are conveyed by 

 germs capable of passing from the tissues of the 

 mother into those of the unborn child otherwise than 

 through the blood. Moreover it must be recollected 

 that the connection between the unborn child and the 

 mother is hardly more intimate than that between some 

 parasites and the animals on which they live. Not 

 a single nerve has been traced between them, not a 

 drop of blood x has been found to pass from the mother 

 to the child. The unborn child together with the 

 growth to which it is attached, and which is afterwards 

 thrown off, have their own vascular system to them- 

 selves, entirely independent of that of the mother. 

 If in an anatomical preparation the veins of the mother 

 are injected with a coloured fluid, none of it enters the 

 veins of the child ; conversely, if the veins of the child 



1 See Lectures by William 0. Priestley, M.D. (Churchill, London, 1860), 

 pp. 50, 52, 55, 59, and 64. 



