ellevue Hospital Medical College, New York,
has met with the following cases:--An Irishwoman, of strong emotions and
superstitions, was passing along a street, in the first months of her
pregnancy, when she was accosted by a beggar, who raised her hand,
destitute of thumb and fingers, and in 'God's name' asked for alms. The
woman passed on, but, reflecting in whose name money was asked, felt
that she had committed a great sin in refusing assistance. She returned
to the place where she had met the beggar, and on different days, but
never afterwards saw her. Harassed by the thought of her imaginary sin,
so that for weeks, according to her statement, she was distressed by it,
she approached her confinement. A female infant was born, otherwise
perfect, but lacking the fingers and thumb of one hand. The deformed
limb was on the same side, and it seemed to the mother to resemble
precisely that of the beggar. In another case which Professor Smith met,
a very similar malformation was attributed by the mother of the child to
an accident occurring, during the time of her pregnancy, to a near
relative, which necessitated amputation. He examined both of these
children with defective limbs, and has no doubt of the truthfulness of
the parents. In May, 1868, he removed a supernumerary thumb from an
infant, whose mother, a baker's wife, gave the following history:--No
one of the family, and no ancestor, to her knowledge, presented this
deformity. In the early months of her pregnancy she sold bread from the
counter, and nearly every day a child with a double thumb came in for a
penny roll, presenting the penny between the thumb and the finger. After
the third month she left the bakery, but the malformation was so
impressed upon her mind, that she was not surprised to see it reproduced
in her infant.

In all these cases the impression was produced in the early months of
pregnancy; but many have been recorded in which malformations in the
infant appeared distinctly traceable to strong mental emotions of the
mother only a few months previous to confinement, these impressions
having been persistent during the remaining period of the pregnancy, and
giving rise to a full expectation on the part of the mother that the
child would be affected in the particular manner which actually
occurred. Professor Carpenter, the distinguished physiologist, is
personally cognisant of a very striking case of the kind which occurred
in the family of a near con