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THE MOTHER AND THE EMBRYO

_The Care of the Mother During the Embryonic Period Determines Largely the
Future Welfare of the Child_

In common with every organism the infant develops from a single germ cell
of almost microscopic size. Wrapped in this tiny cell are all the
possibilities of structure and character that combine to form the
complicated bodily organism and the particular mental endowment of the
coming child.

It was once believed that almost any kind of physical or mental change
could be brought about in the cell through appropriate control of the
environment, but the results of careful observation and experiment are
opposed to this view; all evidence points to the fact that no new character
or element can enter the embryo from without. The cell itself holds the
secret of what the future individual shall be.

The sole connection between the embryo and the mother is the narrow,
umbilical cord which contains no nerves and whose only function is to carry
blood to the growing organism; it may be seen, therefore, how impossible it
is for mental impressions and disturbances on the part of the mother to in
any way reach and affect the embryo. Once started on the road to
development, the embryo is so thoroughly subject to inner laws that nothing
from without can modify or change the direction of its growth except some
physical cause which interferes with the blood supply. An adequate supply
of pure blood is the principal requirement of the growing organism.
Whatever interferes with the blood supply or in any way affects its purity,
has an injurious affect upon the embryo. There is not the least doubt that
lack of nutrition and serious ill-health on the part of the mother have an
extremely bad effect upon the unborn offspring. Severe shock or grief,
worry, nervous exhaustion, disease, and poisons in the blood of the mother
are the most serious sources of injury; they render nutrition defective and
if poison enters directly the blood of the mother or is generated by toxins
through disease, the embryo will be poisoned and may be destroyed. Among
these poisons are alcohol, lead, and the toxins from tuberculosis and the
venereal diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis. To gonorrhea is attributed 80
per cent. of the blindness of children born blind; it is declared to be the
cause of 75 per cent. of all the surgical operations for female disorders
and of 45 per cent. of involuntary sterility in childless w