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, _Muenchener 

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 Roentgen 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 physical changes 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,