On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey.

  • Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.
Date:
1886
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    112/168 (page 92)
    In seeking formerly (in 1849) for a solution of this question, whicli I thought I had been the first to suggest, I was unable to do more than adduce in illustration of it an imperfect observation from Messrs. Maunsell and Evanson, to the effect, that they have notes of the case of a syphilitic child, whose mother had been infected by a former husband, and to all appearance cured five years before its birth; the father of the child, her second husband, being in perfect health.* They do not say, how- ever, in what way she was infected ; and, as it may have been in that of primary aifection or chancre, the case, as it stands, is of no value in relation to the question before us. Dr. Montgomery, of Dublin, I afterwards found, had anticipated me in this question as to syphilis. Eeferring to Lord Morton's mare, and Mr. Giles' sow, Dr. Montgomery remarked, in 1837, m the first edition of his great work On the Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy: Such occurrences appear forcibly to suggest a question, the correct solution of which would be of immense importance in the history and treatment of disease. Is it possible (be asks) that a morbid taint, such as that of syphilis, for instance, haying been once communicated to the system of the female [by a concep- tion ?] may long linger there, and influencing several ova, con- tinue to manifest itself in the offspring of subsequent conceptions, where impregnation has been eflected by a perfectly healthy man, and the system of the mother appearing to be at the time, and for a considerable period previously, quite free from the disease? My belief (he adds) is certainly in favour of the affirmative. • On the Management and Diseases of Children, 5th edit., pp. 452, 453.