^^o6 2 
The difturbed and difordered Imagination of the 
Females ought alfo to be ranged among the acci- 
dental Caufes of Monfters. I have feen in a Sow juft 
flaaghtered feven Pigs, which all had the bloody Mark 
of the Knife about their Necks. About fome twenty 
Years ago, a Cloth-fiiearer in Holland had the Mif- 
fortune to fall into the Hands of fome drunken 
young Fellows, who murdered him, and ftabbed him 
with more than twenty Wounds with their Swords. 
He was to be married that very W eek : His Sweat- 
heart faw his Corpfe naked with all thofc Wounds, 
and was two Days after delivered of a dead Child, 
which had the Marks of the Wounds in the fame 
Places of its Body, where the Mother had obferved 
them on her dead Lover. 
I very well know, that thefe forts of Inftances, 
of which one might alledge fome Hundreds, will 
not go down with certain People, who deny the 
EfFed of the Mothers Imagination on the Foetus. 
They lay Strefs on two principal Reafons : ijl. It is 
pretended, that the Foetus has no immediate Con- 
nexion with the Mother who carries it. But this is 
ridiculous ; for one cannot deny, that the Secundines 
are clofely united to the Matrix^ and receive from 
the Mother a Humour, or a Liquid, which by the 
Navcl-ftring it remits to the Foetus. It is by that 
way it receives its Nourifhment, that is to fay, the 
Matter neceffary for its Increafe. Accordingly one 
may fay, that the Foetus owes part of its Being to the 
Mothers and that the Liquid which runs in the Vef- 
fels of the Mother, runs like wife in the Velfels of the 
Foetus, idlji It is faid, that it is incomprehenlible 
how the Soul of the Mother can have an EfFed on 
the 
