Chapter 14

Sanford Bell, who has investigated the food impulses of children in America, finds that girls have a greater number of likes and dislikes in foods than boys of the same age, though at the same time they have less dislikes to some foods than boys. The proclivity for sweets and fruits shows itself as soon as a child begins to eat solids. The chief fruits liked are oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, and pears. This strong preference for fruits lasts till the age of 13 or 14, though relatively weaker from 10 to 13. In girls, however, Bell notes the significant fact from our present point of view that at mid-adolescence there is a revived taste for sweets and fruits. He believes that the growth of children in taste in foods recapitulates the experience of the race. (S. Bell, "An Introductory Study of the Psychology of Foods."Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1904.)

The heightened nervous impressionability of pregnancy would appear to arouse into activity those primitive impulses which are liable to occur in childhood and in the unmarried girl continue to the nubile age. It is a significant fact that the longings of pregnant women are mainly for fruit, and notably for so wholesome a fruit as the apple, which may very well have a beneficial effect on the system of the pregnant woman. Giles, in his tabulation of the foods longed for by 300 pregnant women, found that the fruit group was by far the largest, furnishing 79 cases; apples were far away at the head, occurring in 34 cases out of the 99 who had longings, while oranges followed at a distance (with 13 cases), and in the vegetable group tomatoes came first (with 6 cases). Several women declared "I could have lived on apples," "I was eating apples all day," "I used to sit up in bed eating apples."[187]Pregnant women appear seldom to long for the possession of objects outside the edible class, and it seems doubtful whether they have any special tendency to kleptomania. Pinard has pointed out that neither Lasègue nor Lunier, in their studies of kleptomania, have mentioned a single shop robbery committed by a pregnant woman.[188]Brouardel has indeed found such cases, but the object stolen was usually a food.

A further significant fact connecting the longings of pregnant women with the longings of children is to be found in the fact that they occur mainly in young women. We have, indeed, no tabulation of the ages of pregnant women who have manifested longings, but Giles has clearly shown that these chieflyoccur in primiparæ, and steadily and rapidly decrease in each successive pregnancy. This fact, otherwise somewhat difficult of explanation, is natural if we look upon the longings of pregnancy as a revival of those of childhood. It certainly indicates also that we can by no means regard these longings as exclusively the expression of a physiological craving, for in that case they would be liable to occur in any pregnancy unless, indeed, it is argued that with each successive pregnancy the woman becomes less sensitive to her own physiological state.

There has been a frequent tendency, more especially among primitive peoples, to regard a pregnant woman's longings as something sacred and to be indulged, all the more, no doubt, as they are usually of a simple and harmless character. In the Black Forest, according to Ploss and Bartels, a pregnant woman may go freely into other people's gardens and take fruit, provided she eats it on the spot, and very similar privileges are accorded to her elsewhere. Old English opinion, as reflected, for instance, in Ben Jonson's plays (as Dr. Harriet C. B. Alexander has pointed out), regards the pregnant woman as not responsible for her longings, and Kiernan remarks ("Kleptomania and Collectivism,"Alienist and Neurologist, November, 1902) that this is in "a most natural and just view." In France at the Revolution a law of the 28th Germinal, in the year III, to some extent admitted the irresponsibility of the pregnant woman generally,—following the classic precedent, by which a woman could not be brought before a court of justice so long as she was pregnant,—but the Napoleonic code, never tender to women, abrogated this. Pinard does not consider that the longings of pregnant women are irresistible, and, consequently, regards the pregnant woman as responsible. This is probably the view most widely held. In any case these longings seldom come up for medico-legal consideration.

The phenomena of the longings of pregnancy are linked to the much more obscure and dubious phenomena of the influence of maternal impressions on the child within the womb. It is true, indeed, that there is no real connection whatever between these two groups of manifestations, but they have been so widely and for so long closely associated in the popular mind that it is convenient to pass directly from one to the other. The same name is sometimes given to the two manifestations; thus in France a pregnant longing is anenvie, while a mother's mark on the child is also called anenvie, because it is supposed to be due to the mother's unsatisfied longing.

The conception of a "maternal impression" (the GermanVersehen) rests on the belief that a powerful mental influence working on the mother's mind may produce an impression, either general or definite, on the child she is carrying. It makes a great deal of difference whether the effect of the impression on the child is general, or definite and circumscribed. It is not difficult to believe that a general effect—even, as Sir Arthur Mitchell first gave good reason for believing, idiocy—may be produced on the child by strong and prolonged emotional influence working on the mother, because such general influence may be transmitted through a deteriorated blood-stream. But it is impossible at present to understand how a definite and limited influence working on the mother could produce a definite and limited effect on the child, for there are no channels of nervous communications for the passage of such influences. Our difficulty in conceiving of the process must, however, be put aside if the fact itself can be demonstrated by convincing evidence.

In order to illustrate the nature of maternal impressions, I will summarize a few cases which I have collected from the best medical periodical literature during the past fifteen years. I have exercised no selection and in no way guarantee the authenticity of the alleged facts or the alleged explanation. They are merely examples to illustrate a class of cases published from time to time by medical observers in medical journals of high repute.Early in pregnancy a woman found her pet rabbit killed by a cat which had gnawed off the two forepaws, leaving ragged stumps; she was for a long time constantly thinking of this. Her child was born with deformed feet, one foot with only two toes, the other three, the os calcis in both feet being either absent or little developed. (G. B. Beale, Tottenham,Lancet, May 4, 1889).Three months and a half before birth of the child the father, a glazier, fell through the roof of a hothouse, severely cutting his right arm, so that he was lying in the infirmary for a long time, and it was doubtful whether the hand could be saved. The child was healthy, but on the flexor surface of the radial side of the right forearm just above the wrist—the same spot as the father's injury—there was a nævus the size of a sixpence. (W. Russell, Paisley,Lancet, May 11, 1889.)At the beginning of pregnancy a woman was greatly scared by being kicked over by a frightened cow she was milking; she hung on to the animal's teats, but thought she would be trampled to death, andwas ill and nervous for weeks afterwards. The child was a monster, with a fleshy substance—seeming to be prolonged from the spinal cord and to represent the brain—projecting from the floor of the skull. Both doctor and nurse were struck by the resemblance to a cow's teats before they knew the woman's story, and this was told by the woman immediately after delivery and before she knew to what she had given birth. (A. Ross Paterson, Reversby, Lincolnshire,Lancet, September 29, 1889.)During the second month of pregnancy the mother was terrified by a bullock as she was returning from market. The child reached full term and was a well-developed male, stillborn. Its head "exactly resembled a miniature cow's head;" the occipital bone was absent, the parietals only slightly developed, the eyes were placed at the top of the frontal bone, which was quite flat, with each of its superior angles twisted into a rudimentary horn. (J. T. Hislop, Tavistock, Devon,Lancet, November 1, 1890.)When four months pregnant the mother, a multipara of 30, was startled by a black and white collie dog suddenly pushing against her and rushing out when she opened the door. This preyed on her mind, and she felt sure her child would be marked. The whole of the child's right thigh was encircled by a shining black mole, studded with white hairs; there was another mole on the spine of the left scapula. (C. F. Williamson, Horley, Surrey,Lancet, October 11, 1890.)A lady in comfortable circumstances, aged 24, not markedly emotional, with one child, in all respects healthy, early in her pregnancy saw a man begging whose arms and legs were "all doubled up." This gave her a shock, but she hoped no ill effects would follow. The child was an encephalous monster, with the extremities rigidly flexed and the fingers clenched, the feet almost sole to sole. In the next pregnancy she frequently passed a man who was a partial cripple, but she was not unduly depressed; the child was a counterpart of the last, except that the head was normal. The next child was strong and well formed. (C. W. Chapman, London,Lancet, October 18, 1890.)When the pregnant mother was working in a hayfield her husband threw at her a young hare he had found in the hay; it struck her on the cheek and neck. Her daughter has on the left cheek an oblong patch of soft dark hair, in color and character clearly resembling the fur of a very young hare. (A. Mackay, Port Appin, N. B.,Lancet, December 19, 1891. The writer records also four other cases which have happened in his experience.)When the mother was pregnant her husband had to attend to a sow who could not give birth to her pigs; he bled her freely, cutting a notch out of both ears. His wife insisted on seeing the sow. The helix of each ear of her child at birth was gone, for nearly or quite half an inch, as if cut purposely. (R. P. Roons,Medical World, 1894.)A lady when pregnant was much interested in a story in which one of the characters had a supernumerary digit, and this often recurred to her mind. Her baby had a supernumerary digit on one hand. (J. Jenkyns, Aberdeen,British Medical Journal, March 2, 1895. The writer also records another case.)When pregnant the mother saw in the forest a new-born fawn which was a double monstrosity. Her child was a similar double monstrosity (cephalothora copagus). (Hartmann,Münchener Medicinisches Wochenschrift, No. 9, 1895.)A well developed woman of 30, who had ten children in twelve years, in the third month of her tenth pregnancy saw a child run over by a street car, which crushed the upper and back part of its head. Her own child was anencephalic and acranial, with entire absence of vault of skull. (F. A. Stahl,American Journal of Obstetrics, April, 1896.)A healthy woman with no skin blemish had during her third pregnancy a violent appetite for sunfish. During or after the fourth month her husband, as a surprise, brought her some sunfish alive, placing them in a pail of water in the porch. She stumbled against the pail and the shock caused the fish to flap over the pail and come in violent contact with her leg. The cold wriggling fish produced a nervous shock, but she attached no importance to this. The child (a girl) had at birth a mark of bronze pigment resembling a fish with the head uppermost (photograph given) on the corresponding part of the same leg. Daughter's health good; throughout life she has had a strong craving for sunfish, which she has sometimes eaten till she has vomited from repletion. (C. F. Gardiner, Colorado Springs,American Journal Obstetrics, February, 1898.)The next case occurred in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Röntgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy with a right foreleg that was ill-developed and minus the paw. (J. Booth, Cork,British Medical Journal, September 16, 1899.)Four months before the birth of her child a woman with four healthy children and no history of deformity in the family fell and cut her left wrist severely against a broken bowl; she had a great fright and shock. Her child, otherwise perfect, was born without left hand and wrist, the stump of arm terminating at lower end of radius and ulna. (G. Ainslie Johnston, Ambleside,British Medical Journal, April 18, 1903.)

Early in pregnancy a woman found her pet rabbit killed by a cat which had gnawed off the two forepaws, leaving ragged stumps; she was for a long time constantly thinking of this. Her child was born with deformed feet, one foot with only two toes, the other three, the os calcis in both feet being either absent or little developed. (G. B. Beale, Tottenham,Lancet, May 4, 1889).

Three months and a half before birth of the child the father, a glazier, fell through the roof of a hothouse, severely cutting his right arm, so that he was lying in the infirmary for a long time, and it was doubtful whether the hand could be saved. The child was healthy, but on the flexor surface of the radial side of the right forearm just above the wrist—the same spot as the father's injury—there was a nævus the size of a sixpence. (W. Russell, Paisley,Lancet, May 11, 1889.)

At the beginning of pregnancy a woman was greatly scared by being kicked over by a frightened cow she was milking; she hung on to the animal's teats, but thought she would be trampled to death, andwas ill and nervous for weeks afterwards. The child was a monster, with a fleshy substance—seeming to be prolonged from the spinal cord and to represent the brain—projecting from the floor of the skull. Both doctor and nurse were struck by the resemblance to a cow's teats before they knew the woman's story, and this was told by the woman immediately after delivery and before she knew to what she had given birth. (A. Ross Paterson, Reversby, Lincolnshire,Lancet, September 29, 1889.)

During the second month of pregnancy the mother was terrified by a bullock as she was returning from market. The child reached full term and was a well-developed male, stillborn. Its head "exactly resembled a miniature cow's head;" the occipital bone was absent, the parietals only slightly developed, the eyes were placed at the top of the frontal bone, which was quite flat, with each of its superior angles twisted into a rudimentary horn. (J. T. Hislop, Tavistock, Devon,Lancet, November 1, 1890.)

When four months pregnant the mother, a multipara of 30, was startled by a black and white collie dog suddenly pushing against her and rushing out when she opened the door. This preyed on her mind, and she felt sure her child would be marked. The whole of the child's right thigh was encircled by a shining black mole, studded with white hairs; there was another mole on the spine of the left scapula. (C. F. Williamson, Horley, Surrey,Lancet, October 11, 1890.)

A lady in comfortable circumstances, aged 24, not markedly emotional, with one child, in all respects healthy, early in her pregnancy saw a man begging whose arms and legs were "all doubled up." This gave her a shock, but she hoped no ill effects would follow. The child was an encephalous monster, with the extremities rigidly flexed and the fingers clenched, the feet almost sole to sole. In the next pregnancy she frequently passed a man who was a partial cripple, but she was not unduly depressed; the child was a counterpart of the last, except that the head was normal. The next child was strong and well formed. (C. W. Chapman, London,Lancet, October 18, 1890.)

When the pregnant mother was working in a hayfield her husband threw at her a young hare he had found in the hay; it struck her on the cheek and neck. Her daughter has on the left cheek an oblong patch of soft dark hair, in color and character clearly resembling the fur of a very young hare. (A. Mackay, Port Appin, N. B.,Lancet, December 19, 1891. The writer records also four other cases which have happened in his experience.)

When the mother was pregnant her husband had to attend to a sow who could not give birth to her pigs; he bled her freely, cutting a notch out of both ears. His wife insisted on seeing the sow. The helix of each ear of her child at birth was gone, for nearly or quite half an inch, as if cut purposely. (R. P. Roons,Medical World, 1894.)

A lady when pregnant was much interested in a story in which one of the characters had a supernumerary digit, and this often recurred to her mind. Her baby had a supernumerary digit on one hand. (J. Jenkyns, Aberdeen,British Medical Journal, March 2, 1895. The writer also records another case.)

When pregnant the mother saw in the forest a new-born fawn which was a double monstrosity. Her child was a similar double monstrosity (cephalothora copagus). (Hartmann,Münchener Medicinisches Wochenschrift, No. 9, 1895.)

A well developed woman of 30, who had ten children in twelve years, in the third month of her tenth pregnancy saw a child run over by a street car, which crushed the upper and back part of its head. Her own child was anencephalic and acranial, with entire absence of vault of skull. (F. A. Stahl,American Journal of Obstetrics, April, 1896.)

A healthy woman with no skin blemish had during her third pregnancy a violent appetite for sunfish. During or after the fourth month her husband, as a surprise, brought her some sunfish alive, placing them in a pail of water in the porch. She stumbled against the pail and the shock caused the fish to flap over the pail and come in violent contact with her leg. The cold wriggling fish produced a nervous shock, but she attached no importance to this. The child (a girl) had at birth a mark of bronze pigment resembling a fish with the head uppermost (photograph given) on the corresponding part of the same leg. Daughter's health good; throughout life she has had a strong craving for sunfish, which she has sometimes eaten till she has vomited from repletion. (C. F. Gardiner, Colorado Springs,American Journal Obstetrics, February, 1898.)

The next case occurred in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Röntgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy with a right foreleg that was ill-developed and minus the paw. (J. Booth, Cork,British Medical Journal, September 16, 1899.)

Four months before the birth of her child a woman with four healthy children and no history of deformity in the family fell and cut her left wrist severely against a broken bowl; she had a great fright and shock. Her child, otherwise perfect, was born without left hand and wrist, the stump of arm terminating at lower end of radius and ulna. (G. Ainslie Johnston, Ambleside,British Medical Journal, April 18, 1903.)

The belief in the reality of the transference of strong mental or physical impressions on the mother into physicalchanges in the child she is bearing is very ancient and widespread. Most writers on the subject begin with the book of Genesis and the astute device of Jacob in influencing the color of his lambs by mental impressions on his ewes. But the belief exists among even more primitive people than the early Hebrews, and in all parts of the world.[189]Among the Greeks there is a trace of the belief in Hippocrates, the first of the world's great physicians, while Soranus, the most famous of ancient gynæcologists, states the matter in the most precise manner, with instances in proof. The belief continued to persist unquestioned throughout the Middle Ages. The first author who denied the influence of maternal impressions altogether appears to have been the famous anatomist, Realdus Columbus, who was a professor at Padua, Pisa, and Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the same century, however, another and not less famous Neapolitan, Della Porta, for the first time formulated a definite theory of maternal impressions. A little later, early in the seventeenth century, a philosophic physician at Padua, Fortunatus Licetus, took up an intermediate position which still finds, perhaps reasonably, a great many adherents. He recognized that a very frequent cause of malformation in the child is to be found in morbid antenatal conditions, but at the same time was not prepared to deny absolutely and in every case the influence of maternal impression on such conditions. Malebranche, the Platonic philosopher, allowed the greatest extension to the power of the maternal imagination. In the eighteenth century, however, the new spirit of free inquiry, of radical criticism, and unfettered logic, led to a sceptical attitude toward this ancient belief then flourishing vigorously.[190]In 1727, a few years after Malebranche's death, James Blondel, a physician of extreme acuteness, who hadbeen born in Paris, was educated at Leyden, and practiced in London, published the first methodical and thorough attack on the doctrine of maternal impressions,The Strength of Imagination of Pregnant Women Examined, and exercised his great ability in ridiculing it. Haller, Roederer, and Sömmering followed in the steps of Blondel, and were either sceptical or hostile to the ancient belief. Blumenbach, however, admitted the influence of maternal impressions. Erasmus Darwin, as well as Goethe in hisWahlverwandtschaften, even accepted the influence of paternal impressions on the child. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the majority of physicians were inclined to relegate maternal impressions to the region of superstition. Yet the exceptions were of notable importance. Burdach, when all deductions were made, still found it necessary to retain the belief in maternal impressions, and Von Baer, the founder of embryology, also accepted it, supported by a case, occurring in his own sister, which he was able to investigate before the child's birth. L. W. T. Bischoff, also, while submitting the doctrine to acute criticism, found it impossible to reject maternal impressions absolutely, and he remarked that the number of adherents to the doctrine was showing a tendency to increase rather than diminish. Johannes Müller, the founder of modern physiology in Germany, declared himself against it, and his influence long prevailed; Valentin, Rudolf Wagner, and Emil du Bois-Reymond were on the same side. On the other hand various eminent gynæcologists—Litzmann, Roth, Hennig, etc.—have argued in favor of the reality of maternal impressions.[191]

The long conflict of opinion which has taken place over this opinion has still left the matter unsettled. The acutest criticsof the ancient belief constantly conclude the discussion with an expression of doubt and uncertainty. Even if the majority of authorities are inclined to reject maternal impressions, the scientific eminence of those who accept them makes a decisive opinion difficult. The arguments against such influence are perfectly sound: (1) it is a primitive belief of unscientific origin; (2) it is impossible to conceive how such influence can operate since there is no nervous connection between mother and child; (3) comparatively few cases have been submitted to severe critical investigation; (4) it is absurd to ascribe developmental defects to influences which arise long after the fœtus had assumed its definite shape[192]; (5) in any case the phenomenon must be rare, for William Hunter could not find a coincidence between maternal impressions and fœtal marks through a period of several years, and Bischoff found no case in 11,000 deliveries. These statements embody the whole of the argument against maternal impressions, yet it is clear that they do not settle the matter. Edgar, in a manual of obstetrics which is widely regarded as a standard work, states that this is "yet a mooted question."[193]Ballantyne, again, in a discussion of this influence at the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, summarizing the result of a year's inquiry, concluded that it is still "sub judice."[194]In a subsequent discussion of the question he has somewhat modified his opinion, and is inclined to deny that definite impressions on the pregnant woman's mind can cause similar defects in the fœtus; they are "accidental coincidences," but he adds that a few of thecases are difficult to explain away. At the same time he fully believes that prolonged and strongly marked mental states of the mother may affect the development of the fœtus in her uterus, causing vascular and nutritive disturbances, irregularities of development, and idiocy.[195]

Whether and in how far mental impressions on the mother can produce definite mental and emotional disposition in the child is a special aspect of the question to which scarcely any inquiry has been devoted. So distinguished a biologist as Mr. A. W. Wallace has, however, called attention to this point, bringing forward evidence on the question and emphasizing the need of further investigation. "Such transmission of mental influence," he remarks, "will hardly be held to be impossible or even very improbable," (A. W. Wallace, "Prenatal Influences on Character,"Nature, August 24, 1893.)

It has already been pointed out that a large number of cases of fœtal deformities, supposed to be due to maternal impressions, cannot possibly be so caused because the impression took place at a period when the development of the fœtus must already have been decided. In this connection, however, it must be noted that Dabney has observed a relationship between the time of supposed mental impressions and the nature of the actual defect which is of considerable significance as an argument in favor of the influence of mental impressions. He tabulated 90 carefully reported cases from recent medical literature, and found that 21 of them were concerned with defects of structure of the lips and palate. In all but 2 of these 21 the defect was referred to an impression occurring within the first three months of pregnancy. This is an important point as showing that the assigned cause really falls within a period when a defect of development actually could produce the observed result, although the person reporting the cases was in many instances manifestly ignorant of the details of embryology and teratology. There was no such preponderance of early impressions among the defects of skin and hair which might well, so far as development is concerned, have been caused at a later period; here, in 7 outof 15 cases, it was distinctly stated that the impression was made later than the fourth month.[196]

It would seem, on the whole, that while the influence of maternal impressions in producing definite effects on the child within the womb has by no means been positively demonstrated, we are not entitled to reject it with any positive assurance. Even if we accept it, however, it must remain, for the present, an inexplicable fact; themodus operandiwe can scarcely even guess at. General influences from the mother on the child we can easily conceive of as conveyed by the mother's blood; we can even suppose that the modified blood might act specifically on one particular kind of tissue. We can, again, as suggested by Féré, very well believe that the maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently active movements of the fœtus may be really consecutive on unconscious maternal excitations.[197]We may also believe that, as suggested by John Thomson, there are slight incoördinationsin utero, a kind of developmental neurosis, produced by some slight lack of harmony of whatever origin, and leading to the production of malformations.[198]We know, finally, that, as Féré and others have repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by experiments on chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the mother's psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect specifically the physical conformation or even the psychic disposition of the child within her womb must remain for the present an insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude that in some cases such action seems to be indicated.

In comprehending such a connection, however at present undemonstrated, it may well be borne in mind that the relationship of the mother to the child within her womb is of a uniquely intimate character. It isof interest in this connection to quote some remarks by an able psychologist, Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall; the remarks are not less interesting for being brought forward without any connection with the question of maternal impressions: "It is true that, so far as we know, the nervous system of the embryo never has a direct connection with the nervous system of the mother: nevertheless, as there is a reciprocity of reaction between the physical body of the mother and its embryonic parasite, the relation of the embryonic nervous system to the nervous system of the mother is not very far removed from the relation of the pre-eminent part of the nervous system of a man to some minor nervous system within his body which is to a marked extent dissociated from the whole neural mass."Correspondingly, then, and within the consciousness of the mother, there develops a new little minor consciousness which, although but lightly integrated with the mass of her consciousness, nevertheless has its part in her consciousness taken as a whole, much as the psychic correspondents of the action of the nerve which govern the secretions of the glands of the body have their part in her consciousness taken as a whole."It is very much as if the optic ganglia developed fully in themselves, without any closer connection with the rest of the brain than existed at their first appearance. They would form a little complex nervous system almost but not quite apart from the brain system; and it would be difficult to deny them a consciousness of their own; which would indeed form part of the whole consciousness of the individual, but which would be in a manner self-dependent." It must, if this is so, be said that before birth, on the psychic side, the embryo's activities "form part of a complex consciousness which is that of the mother and embryo together." "Without subscribing to the strange stories of telepathy, of the solemn apparition of a person somewhere at the moment of his death a thousand miles away, of the unquiet ghost haunting the scenes of its bygone hopes and endeavors, one may ask" (with the author of the address in medicine at the Leicester gathering of the British Medical Association,British Medical Journal, July 29, 1905) "whether two brains cannot be so tuned in sympathy as to transmit and receive a subtile transfusion of mind without mediation of sense. Considering what is implied by the human brain with its countless millions of cells, its complexities of minute structure, its innumerable chemical compositions, and the condensed forces in its microscopic and ultramicroscopic elements—the whole a sort of microcosm of cosmic forces to which no conceivable compound of electric batteries is comparable; considering, again, that from an electric station waves of energy radiate through the viewless air to be caught up by a fit receiver a thousand miles distant, it is not inconceivable that the human brain may send off still more subtilewaves to be accepted and interpreted by the fitly tuned receiving brain. Is it, after all, mere fancy that a mental atmosphere or effluence emanates from one person to affect another, either soothing sympathetically or irritating antipathically?" These remarks (like Dr. Marshall's) were made without reference to maternal impressions, but it may be pointed out that under no conceivable circumstance could we find a brain in so virginal and receptive a state as is the child's in the womb.

"Correspondingly, then, and within the consciousness of the mother, there develops a new little minor consciousness which, although but lightly integrated with the mass of her consciousness, nevertheless has its part in her consciousness taken as a whole, much as the psychic correspondents of the action of the nerve which govern the secretions of the glands of the body have their part in her consciousness taken as a whole.

"It is very much as if the optic ganglia developed fully in themselves, without any closer connection with the rest of the brain than existed at their first appearance. They would form a little complex nervous system almost but not quite apart from the brain system; and it would be difficult to deny them a consciousness of their own; which would indeed form part of the whole consciousness of the individual, but which would be in a manner self-dependent." It must, if this is so, be said that before birth, on the psychic side, the embryo's activities "form part of a complex consciousness which is that of the mother and embryo together." "Without subscribing to the strange stories of telepathy, of the solemn apparition of a person somewhere at the moment of his death a thousand miles away, of the unquiet ghost haunting the scenes of its bygone hopes and endeavors, one may ask" (with the author of the address in medicine at the Leicester gathering of the British Medical Association,British Medical Journal, July 29, 1905) "whether two brains cannot be so tuned in sympathy as to transmit and receive a subtile transfusion of mind without mediation of sense. Considering what is implied by the human brain with its countless millions of cells, its complexities of minute structure, its innumerable chemical compositions, and the condensed forces in its microscopic and ultramicroscopic elements—the whole a sort of microcosm of cosmic forces to which no conceivable compound of electric batteries is comparable; considering, again, that from an electric station waves of energy radiate through the viewless air to be caught up by a fit receiver a thousand miles distant, it is not inconceivable that the human brain may send off still more subtilewaves to be accepted and interpreted by the fitly tuned receiving brain. Is it, after all, mere fancy that a mental atmosphere or effluence emanates from one person to affect another, either soothing sympathetically or irritating antipathically?" These remarks (like Dr. Marshall's) were made without reference to maternal impressions, but it may be pointed out that under no conceivable circumstance could we find a brain in so virginal and receptive a state as is the child's in the womb.

On the whole we see that pregnancy induces a psychic state which is at once, in healthy persons, one of full development and vigor, and at the same time one which, especially in individuals who are slightly abnormal, is apt to involve a state of strained or overstrained nervous tension and to evoke various manifestations which are in many respects still imperfectly understood. Even the specifically sexual emotions tend to be heightened, more especially during the earlier period of pregnancy. In 24 cases of pregnancy in which the point was investigated by Harry Campbell, sexual feeling was decidedly increased in 8, in one case (of a woman aged 31 who had had four children) being indeed only present during pregnancy, when it was considerable; in only 7 cases was there diminution or disappearance of sexual feeling.[199]Pregnancy may produce mental depression;[200]but on the other hand it frequently leads to a change of the most favorable character in the mental and general well-being. Some women indeed are only well during pregnancy. It is remarkable that some women who habitually suffer from various nervous troubles—neuralgias, gastralgia, headache, insomnia—are only free from them at this moment. This "paradox of gestation," as Vinay has termed it, is specially marked in the hysterical and those suffering from slight nervous disorders, but it is by no means universal, so that although it is possible, Vinay states, to confirm the opinion of the ancients asto the beneficial action of marriage on hysteria, that is only true of slight cases and scarcely enables us to counsel marriage in hysteria.[201]Even a woman's intelligence is sometimes heightened by pregnancy, and Tarnier, as quoted by Vinay, knew many women whose intelligence, habitually somewhat obtuse, has only risen to the normal level during pregnancy.[202]The pregnant woman has reached the climax of womanhood; she has attained to that state toward which the periodically recurring menstrual wave has been drifting her at regular intervals throughout her sexual life[203]; she has achieved that function for which her body has been constructed, and her mental and emotional disposition adapted, through countless ages.

And yet, as we have seen, our ignorance of the changes effected by the occurrence of this supremely important event—even on the physical side—still remains profound. Pregnancy, even for us, the critical and unprejudiced children of a civilized age, still remains, as for the children of more primitive ages, a mystery. Conception itself is a mystery for the primitive man, and may be produced by all sorts of subtle ways apart from sexual connection, even by smelling a flower.[204]The pregnant womanwas surrounded by ceremonies, by reverence and fear, often shut up in a place apart.[205]Her presence, her exhalations, were of extreme potency; even in some parts of Europe to-day, as in the Walloon districts of Belgium, a pregnant woman must not kiss a child for her breath is dangerous, or urinate on plants for she will kill them.[206]The mystery has somewhat changed its form; it still remains. The future of the race is bound up with our efforts to fathom the mystery of pregnancy. "The early days of human life," it has been truly said, "are entirely one with the mother. On her manner of life—eating, drinking, sleeping, and thinking—what greatness may not hang?"[207]Schopenhauer observed, with misapplied horror, that there is nothing a woman is less modest about than the state of pregnancy, while Weininger exclaims: "Never yet has a pregnant woman given expression in any form—poem, memoirs, or gynæcological monograph—to her sensations or feelings."[208]Yet when we contemplate the mystery of pregnancy and all that it involves, how trivial all such considerations become! We are here lifted into a region where our highest intelligence can only lead us to adoration, for we are gazing at a process in which the operations of Nature become one with the divine task of Creation.

[169]

See,e.g., Groos,Æsthetische Genuss, p. 249. "We have to admit," Groos observes, "the entrance of another instinct, the impulse to tend and foster, so closely connected with the sexual life. It is seemingly due to the co-operation of this impulse that the little female bird during courtship is so often fed by the male like a young fledgling. In man 'love' from the biological standpoint is also an amalgamation of two needs; when the tender need to protect and foster and serve is lacking the emotion is not quite perfect. Heine's expression, 'With my mantle I protect you from the storm,' has always seemed to me very characteristic." Sometimes the sexual impulse may undergo a complete transformation in this direction. "I believe there is really a tendency in women," a lady writes in a letter, "to allow maternal feeling to take the place of sexual feeling. Very often a woman's feeling for her husband becomes this (though he may be twenty years older than herself); sometimes it does not, remaining purely sex feeling. Sometimes it is for some other man she has this curious self-obliterating maternal feeling. It is not necessarily connected with sex intercourse. A prostitute, who has relations with dozens of men, may have it for some feeble drunken fool, who perhaps goes after other women. I once saw the change from sex feeling to mother feeling, as I call it, come almost suddenly over a woman after she had lived about four years with a man who was unfaithful to her. Then, when all real sex feeling, the hatred of the woman he followed, the desire he should give her love and tenderness, had all gone, came the other feeling, and she said to me, 'You don't understand at all; he's only my little baby; nothing he does can make any difference to me now.' As I grow older and understand women's natures better, I can see almost at once which relation it is a woman has to her husband, or any given man. It is this feeling, and not sex passion, that keeps woman from being free." Not only is there a sexual association in the impulse to foster and protect, there would appear to be a similar element also in the response to that impulse. Freud has especially insisted on the partly sexual character of the child's feelings for those who care for it and tend it and satisfy its needs. It is begun in earliest infancy; "whoever has seen the sated infant sink back from the breast, to fall asleep with flushed cheeks and happy smile, must say that the picture is adequate to the expression of the sexual satisfaction of later life." The lips, moreover, are the earliest erogenous zone. "There will, perhaps, be some opposition," Freud remarks (Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, pp. 36, 64), "to the identification of the child's feelings of tenderness and appreciation for those who tend it with sexual love, but I believe that exact psychological analysis will place the identity beyond doubt. The relationship of the child with the person who tends it is for it a continual source of sexual excitement and satisfaction flowing from the erogenous zones, especially since the fostering person—as a rule the mother—regards the child with emotions which proceed from her sexual life; strokes it, kisses it, rocks it, and very plainly treats it as a compensation for a fully valid sexual object." Freud remarks that girls who retain the childish character of their love for their parents to adult age are apt to make cold wives and to be sexually anæsthetic.

[170]

Esbach (in hisThèse de Paris, published in 1876) showed that even the finger nails are affected in pregnancy and become measurably thinner.

[171]

C. H. Stratz,Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers, Chapter VI.

[172]

Iron appears to be liberated in the maternal organism during pregnancy, and Wychgel has shown (Zeitschrift für Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie, bd. xlvii, Heft II) that the pigment of pregnant women contains iron, and that the amount of iron in the urine is increased.

[173]

Vinay,Maladies de la Grossesse, Chapter VIII; K. Hennig, "Exploratio Externa,"Comptes-rendus du XIIe. Congrès International de Médècine, vol. vi, Section XIII, pp. 144-166. A bibliography of the literature concerning the physiology of pregnancy, extending to ten pages, is appended by Pinard to his article "Grossesse,"Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales.

[174]

Stratz,op. cit., Chapter XII.

[175]

W. S. A. Griffith, "The Diagnosis of Pregnancy,"British Medical Journal, April 11, 1903.

[176]

J. Mackenzie and H. O. Nicholson, "The Heart in Pregnancy,"British Medical Journal, October 8, 1904; Stengel and Stanton, "The Condition of the Heart in Pregnancy,"Medical Record, May 10, 1902 andUniversity Pennsylvania Medical Bulletin, Sept., 1904 (summarized inBritish Medical Journal, August 16, 1902, and Sept. 23, 1905.)

[177]

J. Henderson, "Maternal Blood at Term,"Journal of Obstetrics and Gynæcology, February, 1902; C. Douglas, "The Blood in Pregnant Women,"British Medical Journal, March 26, 1904; W. L. Thompson, "The Blood in Pregnancy,"Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, June, 1904.

[178]

H. O. Nicholson, "Some Remarks on the Maternal Circulation in Pregnancy,"British Medical Journal, October 3, 1903.

[179]

J. Morris Slemans, "Metabolism During Pregnancy,"Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports, vol. xii, 1904.

[180]

B. Wolff,Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie, 1904, No. 26.

[181]

Tridandani,Annali di Ostetrica, March, 1900.

[182]

R. Barnes, "The Induction of Labor,"British Medical Journal, December 22, 1894.

[183]

See,e.g., Havelock Ellis,Man and Woman, fourth edition, pp. 344,et seq.

[184]

Arthur Giles, "The Longings of Pregnant Women,"Transactions Obstetrical Society of London, vol. xxxv, 1893.

[185]

Ploss and Bartels,Das Weib, Chapter XXX.

[186]

Thus, in Cornwall, "to be in the longing way" is a popular synonym for pregnancy.

[187]

The apple, wherever it is known, has nearly always been a sacred or magic fruit (as J. F. Campbell shows,Popular Tales of West Highlands, vol. I, p. lxxv.et seq.), and the fruit of the forbidden tree which tempted Eve is always popularly imagined to be an apple. One may perhaps refer in this connection to the fact that at Rome and elsewhere the testicles have been called apples. I may add that we find a curious proof of the recognition of the feminine love of apples in an old Portuguese ballad, "Donna Guimar," in which a damsel puts on armour and goes to the wars; her sex is suspected and as a test, she is taken into an orchard, but Donna Guimar is too wary to fall into the trap, and turning away from the apples plucks a citron.

[188]

A. Pinard, Art. "Grossesse,"Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales, p. 138. On the subject of violent, criminal and abnormal impulses during pregnancy, see Cumston, "Pregnancy and Crime,"American Journal Obstetrics, December, 1903.

[189]

See especially Ploss and Bartels,Das Weib, vol. i, Chapter XXXI. Ballantyne in his work on the pathology of the fœtus adds Loango negroes, the Eskimo and the ancient Japanese.

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