The Washington times., 1920-03-28


Then wonderful to tellD II you deny
The strange request, nor with their wish
comply,
Avenging Nature, from unknown designs.
With spots and marks the fetus' body
signs <
With stains indelible, that never can ..>
Wear out, thro' life. in woman. or in man.
And stranger still) while in the mothers
q, breast
This passion sways, and RACES DER the
rest, -,.
Whatever place she scratches, 0,
besmears, -
mark. in the same part, her infant bea-s
Hence oft unseemly moles and freckles
On virgin bosoh1s white besides, as snow;
Ger beauteous bodies wens and tumors
And, for the mothers guilt. the daughters
feel. 49, =
Oliver Wendell Holmes founded the plo;
OF his fascinating noverS"Eisie Venner,"
upon a maternal impress: on. In the For
tunes OF Nigel" Sir Walter Scott ascribes
the terror evinced by James l. at the sight
of a sword to the fact that Rizzio was
murdered in the presence of Mary Queen
future King of England In "Avius the
Lybyan." an anonymous novel which had
a vogue in the early eighties, a snake, as
in Elsie Venner," figures in the plot as
the cause Of maternal impression which
influences the life of the protagonist. Am
brose Bierce, in like manner introduces a
panther in one Of his thrillers by way of
accounting for the anmal-lke personality
of one of his heroines.
Al. l. Al
of maternal impressions abnormalities
would be the rule and not the exception,
for it is impossible for. prospective mothers
to escape being impressed by unple asant
sights and emotions. PestaloZzi and Res
nevic some time ago reported on sixty
women brought to the Rome maternities
from the earthquake district where they
had undergone the greatest terrors, some
having been buried under the ruins for
hours. All the children were normal.
Two of the labors were premature. but
that is irrelevant to our subject.
The wives of drunkards sometimes have
feeble,minded children, and this condition
d the offspring has been thought to be
due to their mothers horror and disgust
Of the fathers, but II must be remembered
that the very drunkenness Of the fathers
proves them to be possessed of defective
nervous systems. Here heredity and not
maternal impressions clearly accounts for
defects.
Hereditary defects. meaning not alone
observation-disclosures, but the whole range Of
abnormalities from deafmutism TO mon
strosities, sometimes skip generation and
are likely to be forgotten" as existing in
the family line.
The truth is that this theory is founded
upon the old principle of the scapegoat.
Man likes to ascribe unhappy situations
for which he or his stock are responsible
to somebody or something else. So the
defects Of children are blamed upon mad
dogs that the mothers saw, or the sight
of some one in a CONFUSION, or stroke"
or upon the malicious power Of some &C.
centric person, or even upon the wrath of
God. So innocent animals or persons are
made responsible for the defective human
beings culprit must be found. Thus
harelip is ascribed to fright occasioned by
a rabbit, while strawberry marks are
blamed upon fright from fire. the sight of
blood or cravings on the part OF the moth.
er for cherries. tomatoes. etc.
There Is a total lack Of nervous Connec.
ton between mother and unborn infant
Moreover, the alleged cause OF the anomaly
generally takes place al period not CO
incident with that Of the embryonic evo-
luton Of the part affected.
Councilman. the Harvard pathologist,
dismisses utterly maternal impressions as
a cause of malformations. He declares
that there is no scientific foundation for
the belief, and that there Is no proof that
maternal impressions can have any effect
upon the developing child. All malforma-
tions seen in man, he AYERS, are found In
the lower mammalia, in whom the innu-
ence OF impressions cannot be maintained
They are also met with in birds, in which