Principles of human physiology : with their chief applications to pathology, hygiene and forensic medicine / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of human physiology : with their chief applications to pathology, hygiene and forensic medicine / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    this hitherto mysterious process. According to the view here given, the Male furnishes the germ; and the Female supplies it with Nutriment, during the whole period of its early development. There is no difficulty m reconciling such a doctrine with the well-known fact, that the offspring commonly hears a resemblance to both parents (of which the production of a hybrid between distinct species is the most striking example); since numerous phenomena prove that, in this earliest and simplest condition of the organism, the form it will ultimately assume veiy much depends upon circumstances external to it; among which circumstances, the kind of nutriment supplied will be one of the most important* Upon the same principle we may account for the influence of the mental condition of the Mother upon her Offspring, during a later period of pregnancy. That such influence may occur, there can be no reasonable doubt. We have demonstrative evidence, says Dr. A. Combe, f that a fit of passion in a nurse vitiates the quality of the milk to such a degree, as to cause cholic and indigestion [or even death] in the suckling infant. If, in the child already born, and in so far independent of its parent, the relation between the two is thus strong, is it unreasonable to suppose that it should be yet stronger, when the infant lies in its mother's womb, is nourished indirectly by its mother's blood, and is, to all intents and purposes, a part of her own body ? If a sudden and powerful emotion of her own mind exerts such an influence upon her stomach as to excite immediate vomiting, and upon her heart as almost to arrest its motion and induce fainting, can we believe that it will have no effect on her womb and the fragile being con- tained within it ? Facts and reason, then, alike demonstrate the reality of the influence: and much practical advantage would result to both parent and child, were the conditions and extent of its operations better under- stood. Among facts of this class, there is, perhaps, none more striking than that quoted by the same Author from Baron Percy, as having occurred after the siege of Landau in 1793. In addition to a violent cannonading, which kept the women for some time in a constant state of alarm, the arsenal blew up with a terrific explosion, which few could hear with un- shaken nerves. Out of 92 children born in that district within a few months afterwards, Baron Percy states that 16 died at the instant of birth ; 33 languished for from 8 to 10 months, and then died ; 8 became idiotic, and died before the age of 6 years; and 2 came into the world with nume- rous fractures of the bones of the limbs, caused by the cannonading and explosion. Here, then, is a total of 59 children out of 92, or within a trifle of 2 out of every 3, actually killed through the medium of the Mother's alarm and the natural consequences upon her own organisation,—an experiment (for such it is to the Physiologist) upon too large a scale for its results to be set down as mere coincidences. No soundly-judging Physiologist of the present day is likely to fall into the popular error, of supposing that marks upon the Infant are to be referred to some transient thoueh stron<» impression upon the imagination of the Mother; but there appear to be a sufficient number of facts on record, to prove that habitual mental con- * See Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, § 6Ck>. t On the Management of Infancy, p. 76.