& 
 
 

 % 
 
ON THE 
 
 FCETUS IN UTEKO 
 
 AS INOCULATING THE MATERNAL WITH 
 
 THE PECULIARITIES OF THE 
 
 PATERNAL ORGANISM. 
 
 SERIES OF ESSAYS NOW FIRST COLLECTEB. 
 
 ALEXANDER HARVEY, M.A., M.D., 
 
 EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABER- 
 DEEN ; CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO THE ABERDEEN ROYAL INFIRMARY ; 
 MEMBER AND LATE PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY 
 OF ABERDEEN, AND OF THE HARVEIAN SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 H. K. LEWIS, 136, GOWER STREET, 
 
 1886. 
 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 J A A * A A 
 
SIR ANDREW CLARK, BART., 
 
 M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., 
 
 SENIOR PHYSICIAN TO THE LONDON HOSPITAL, 
 
 IN WHICH HOSPITAL, IN 1835, 
 
 THE ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLE OF THIS WORK FOUND FULL EXPRESSION, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF ATTAINMENTS, PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND PERSONAL, 
 
 WHICH HAVE WON FOR HIM THE HIGH PLACE 
 LONG HELD BY HIM AS A PHYSICIAN IN THIS METROPOLIS, 
 
 AND WHICH HAVE, MORE RECENTLY, 
 ARNED FOR HIM HONOURABLE DISTINCTION AT THE HANDS OF THE QUEEN. 
 
 AND, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT, ALSO, 
 
 OF MANY MUCH-VALUED PROFESSIONAL AND OTHER KIND SERVICES 
 RENDERED BY HIM TO THE AUTHOR. 
 
 M3700G5 
 
" It is a generally received opinion, I believe, that 
 syphilis in its secondary stage, is not communicable 
 directly to either sex from the other that the 
 disease is not propagated unless there exist an open 
 chancre ; and this accords with my observation. 
 But it appears to me probable, that if a previously 
 healthy woman conceive of an ovum tainted by 
 syphilitic virus derived from its father, her system 
 may become inoculated during the progress of ges- 
 tation, in consequence of the close vascular connec- 
 tion existing between it and herself ; for it has 
 fallen to my lot to see more, than one case in which a 
 young woman, united to a man labouring under 
 obstinate secondary symptoms, remained healthy 
 for some months after marriage, but became the sub- 
 ject of the same disease in its secondary form soon 
 after impregnation had taken place ; and I have con- 
 sidered that, in such a case, the mother derived the 
 disease,, not directly from the father, but from the 
 affected infant which she carried in her womb."- 
 FRANCIS H. RAMSBOTHAM, M.D.- Medical Gazette, 
 May 23, 1835. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Essays five in number comprised in this 
 small volume, are, virtually, reprints of papers on 
 the subject of Foetal Inoculation contributed by the 
 Author, the first three of them, in 1849-50, to the 
 Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, and 
 the fourth, in 1859, to the Glasgow Medical Journal. 
 The fifth and last of the Essays was contributed, in 
 1866, to the Indian Annals of Medical Science by 
 the Author's son Dr. Robert Harvey, Professor of 
 Midwifery in the Medical College of Calcutta, by 
 whose permission it is appended to this collection. 
 
 In now again submitting these Essays to the 
 notice of his professional brethren, the Author 
 would observe that, since the inoculation theory was 
 first fully ventilated and brought under discussion, 
 one whole generation of medical men has passed 
 away and been replaced by another ; and that as to 
 these, it is not perhaps going too far to say, that to 
 a large number of them the theory in question is 
 but little known, or known only in name, with but 
 little or no knowledge of particulars, and that to 
 not a few it is not known at all. For, thoroughly 
 well grounded as the theory now is, and important 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 as well as manifold as, by those conversant with it, 
 its bearings are known to be, it so happens that 
 somehow it has as yet received only a passing notice 
 or no notice at all, in our text-books on physi- 
 ology ; while access to the original papers that 
 treated of it and which lie buried in different 
 medical journals, and even in newspapers, is not 
 readily to be had. 
 
 Such being the case, while the subject is, un- 
 questionably, alike interesting and important, the 
 Author would venture to give expression to a hope 
 that this reproduction of the papers referred to, and 
 that too in a convenient because a collected form, 
 will be not unacceptable to many members of the 
 profession. As far as he could he has striven to 
 weed the Essays of redundancies and repetitions. 
 But it will be obvious, on a moment's reflection, 
 that this could not have been effectually accom- 
 plised without re-casting and re-writing the entire 
 work a task which broken health would have for- 
 bidden him undertaking. 
 
 16, HANOVER TERRACE, 
 
 LADBROKE SQUARE, 
 
 LONDON, January 21, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ESSAY FIRST. 
 
 On the Foetus in Utero as Inoculating the Maternal with the 
 Peculiarities of the Paternal Organism ; And 
 
 On the Influence thereby exerted by the Male on the Con- 
 stitution and the Reproductive Powers of the Female . 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 The Count de Strzelecki : His Law of Relative Sterility . 23 
 
 ESSAY SECOND. 
 
 On the Foetus in Utero as Inoculating the Maternal with the 
 
 Peculiarities of the Paternal Organism, etc. (continued) 35 
 
 ESSAY THIRD. 
 
 On the Foetus in Utero as Influenced in its Development by 
 
 Mental States in either Parent ..... 57 
 
Contents. 
 
 ESSAY FOURTH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Fcetus in Utero as the Channel of Transmission of 
 Constitutional Syphilis from the Male to the Female 
 Parent ......... 79 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Count de Strzelecki : Exceptions to his Law Mr. 
 
 Savory: his Researches 117 
 
 ESSAY FIFTH. 
 
 Remarks on a Case by the late Mr. Hey, of Leeds, Illustra- 
 ve of the Transmission through the Fretus of Secondary 
 Syphilis from the Male to the Female Parent . .123 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 THE first three of the Essays in this Collection, those 
 which appeared in 1849-50, arose out of an article 
 of great interest which was contributed to the 
 Aberdeen Journal newspaper in 1849, by Mr. James 
 Macgillivray, of Huntly, a veterinary surgeon in 
 Aberdeenshire. In that article Mr. Macgillivray 
 made it his business not merely to propound the 
 theory of Foetal Inoculation the idea of which had 
 independently suggested itself to his own mind- 
 but to state also the grounds on which he advanced 
 it. In his view it is only on such a principle that 
 certain phenomena arising out of cross-breeding 
 can satisfactorily be accounted for phenomena long 
 familiar to persons engaged in the breeding of 
 different kinds of animals. 
 
 Struck with the novelty, and, he may add, with 
 the reasonableness of the view presented in that 
 article, based on the intimate vascular connection 
 subsisting between the Foetus in utero and its 
 mother, the Author kept a firm hold of it, and 
 following it out as best he could and as opportunity 
 offered, he made inquiry about it in all quarters, 
 
xii Introduction. 
 
 and as well among cattle-breeders as among his 
 professional brethren. The result was the publi- 
 cation that same year and the year following of the 
 papers referred to. Further, in the hope of engag- 
 ing the co-operation in this inquiry of the cattle- 
 breeders (a large body in Aberdeenshire) the Author 
 published, in 1851, a pamphlet on the subject, dedi- 
 cated to the Highland and Agricultural Society of 
 Scotland, and embodying in a popular form the sub- 
 stance of those papers. This pamphlet bore the 
 title of " On a Remarkable Effect of Cross-Breed- 
 ing." 
 
 These papers and this pamphlet served the pur- 
 pose aimed at in their publication. The theory thus 
 floated was taken in hand by the profession and by 
 cattle-breeders. The subject was kept alive and 
 largely inquired into. A large body of facts was 
 brought together, and the theory, it may now be 
 confidently affirmed, has come to be accepted as a 
 truth a law in physiology, and one, too, of the 
 highest importance practically. 
 
 The Author had for many years looked upon 
 Mr. Macgillivray as entitled to the paternity of this 
 very beautiful theory. And so far he does so still. 
 The idea of it was entirely original with him ; and 
 at the time he advanced it, it had no place in any 
 of our physiological works, text-books, or records. 
 
 In none, at least as far as known to the Author, 
 save one the old London Medical Gazette for 
 May 23, 1835. Its issue that day contained the 
 report of a lecture on " Abortion," delivered at the 
 London Hospital by Dr. Hamsbotham. In that 
 
Introduction. xiii 
 
 lectnre Dr. Ramsbotham made the very striking 
 announcement of the theory which stands on the 
 page facing the Preface to this book. It speaks for 
 itself as the fullest yet the most concise, the 
 clearest and most explicit expression of the theory 
 that can well be given. Yet it had long lain in 
 that periodical virtually dead and buried. By the 
 merest chance it was that the Author lighted on it 
 there in 1856, twenty-one years after its publica- 
 tion.* 
 
 It does not appear whether Dr. Eamsbotham 
 ever did more than give this expression of the 
 theory. If he did, it is nowhere to be met with, 
 and it is certain that nothing came of it. Pity it 
 is for his own sake that, having himself worked out 
 the idea of it, although as only probably true, he 
 did not keep hold of it and look more deeply into 
 it. Had he done so he could scarcely have failed to 
 see the nail straight ahead of him, and so as to 
 have driven it home that is, he could scarcely have 
 failed to see the actual truth of the theory ; nor 
 this alone, but to see it also as a truth of no mean 
 importance and of wide application in physiology 
 and pathology. This much it is due to the memory 
 of Dr. Ramsbotham (a man highly esteemed in his 
 day) to take note of in connection with this sketch 
 of the evolution of the theory. 
 
 In now presenting the papers referred to (the 
 
 * Dr. Montgomery, of Dublin, refers to it in the second edition 
 of his great work, published in 1856, not in the first, published 
 in 1837. But he does not say when he came to the knowledge 
 of it. 
 
xiv Introduction. 
 
 pamphlet on Cross-Breeding alone excepted) in a 
 collected form, under the name of Essays, to his 
 professional brethren, the Author desires it to be 
 understood that he claims no credit in respect of the 
 theory of Foetal Inoculation beyond that of calling 
 attention to it. He did not suggest the theory, and 
 (as will be seen in these pages) he has uniformly 
 disclaimed the paternity whenever ascribed to him 
 by correspondents. As already observed, he only 
 floated it out into the world the professional world 
 and the agricultural . This credit, however, he 
 does claim, and he deems it credit enough. As to 
 who it is that is entitled to claim the paternity, or 
 rather, in behalf of whom that claim ought in fair- 
 ness to be set up, whether in behalf of Dr. Rams- 
 botham or of Mr. Macgillivray both of them long 
 since dead or of any one else rather than of either 
 of these, there may be difference of opinion. But, 
 iudeed, as regards controversial discussions on the 
 pretensions of different observers to priority of dis- 
 covery, the Author cordially concurs in a remark 
 made by Dr. Alison to wit, that " a much greater 
 and more enduring interest attaches to the determi- 
 nation of truth, than to the adjustment of any such 
 personal claims." As to the two observers just 
 named, however, it is clear that from the facts 
 before them they both arrived, independently, at 
 identical conclusions, the only difference between 
 them being one as to time the one being fourteen 
 years in advance of the other. If there be any 
 other difference it lies in the kind of the facts from 
 which they severally deduced their common con- 
 
Introduction. xv 
 
 elusion, resting it, the one on pathological, the 
 other on physiological facts. 
 
 In this brief Introduction the Author, for the 
 most part at least, has confined himself to his own 
 particular relations to the subject of these Essays, 
 and to the circumstances under which those of 
 them that were contributed by himself were written. 
 In the Essays themselves reference is made and full 
 justice done (it is hoped) to those and these not 
 a few that have aided in the evolution of this 
 theory, or, rather, this LAW of FOETAL INOCULATION. 
 
FROM 
 
 THE EDINBURGH MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, 
 
 For October, TS49. 
 
ESSAY FIRST. 
 
 ON THE FOETUS IN UTERO, ETC. 
 
 INSTANCES are sufficiently common among the lower 
 animals where the offspring exhibit, more or less 
 distinctly over and beyond the characters of the 
 male by which they were begotten, the peculiarities 
 also of a male by which their mother had at some 
 former period been impregnated, or, as it has been 
 otherwise expressed, where the peculiarities of a 
 male animal that has once had fruitful intercourse 
 with a female, are more or less distinctly recog- 
 nized in the offspring of subsequent connections of 
 that female with other males. * A young chestnut 
 mare, seven-eighths Arabian, belonging to the Earl 
 of Morton, was covered in 1815 by a quagga, 
 which is a species of wild ass from Africa, and 
 marked somewhat after the manner of the zebra. 
 The mare was covered but once by the quagga; 
 and, after a pregnancy of eleven months and four 
 days, gave birth to a hybrid which had distinct 
 
 * Alison, Outlines of Physiology, 3rd. Ed., p. 443. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Essays on the 
 
 marks of the quagga, in the shape of its head, 
 black bars on the legs and shoulders, &c. In 1817, 
 1818, and 1821, the same mare (which had in the 
 meantime passed into the possession of Sir Gore 
 Ouseley), was covered by a very fine black Arabian 
 horse, and produced successively three foals, all of 
 which bore unequivocal marks of the quagga.* 
 Several other examples illustrative of the general 
 fact above stated will presently be given. 
 
 Great difficulty has been felt by physiological 
 writers in regard to the proper explanation of this 
 kind of phenomena. They have been ascribed by 
 some to a permanent impression made somehow by 
 the semen of the first 'male on the genitals, and 
 more particularly on the ova, of the female ; and by 
 others to an abiding influence exerted by him on 
 the imagination of the female, and operating on her 
 mind at the time of her connection subsequently 
 with other males, and perhaps during her preg- 
 nancy. But they seem to be regarded by most 
 physiologists as inexplicable. 
 
 Very recently, in a paper published in the 
 " Aberdeen Journal, "t an intelligent veterinary 
 surgeon, Mr. James M'Gillivray, of Huntly, has 
 offered an explanation, which seems to me to be the 
 true one. His theory is set forth in the following 
 statements quoted from that paper : " When a 
 pure animal of any breed has been pregnant to an 
 animal of a different breed, such pregnant animal is 
 
 * Philosophical Transactions, 1821, p. 20 ; Dunglison's Human 
 Physiology, 3rd. Ed., vol. ii. p. 387. 
 f March 21 and 28, 1849. 
 
Fcctus in Utero. 5 
 
 a cross ever after ; the purity of her blood being lost, 
 in consequence of her connection with the foreign 
 animal ; " and again : " If a cow, say of the pure 
 Aberdeenshire breed, is in calf to a bull of the short- 
 horn breed (known as the Teeswater breed), in pro- 
 portion as this calf partakes of the nature and physi- 
 cal characters of the bull, just in proportion will the 
 blood of the cow become contaminated, and herself a 
 cross, for ever incapable of producing a pure calf of 
 any breed." " It is maintained, therefore (Mr. 
 M'Gillivray adds), that the great variety of non- 
 descript animals to be met with are the result of the 
 crossing system; the prevailing evil of which is 
 the admission of bulls of various breeds to the 
 same cow, whereby the blood is completely vitiated" 
 
 In explanation of his theory, Mr. M'Gillivray 
 enters into particulars as to the nature of the con- 
 nection subsisting between the foetus in utero and 
 its mother, with the view of showing (what seems 
 to him essential to the validity of the theory) that 
 there is a direct vascular communication between 
 the two ; and that, while a portion of the mother's 
 blood is continually passing by direct transmission 
 into the body of the foetus-, the latter returns to the 
 former so much of that blood as is not needed by it, 
 and that this superfluous blood, after circulating 
 through the system of the foetus, passes as directly 
 into the system of the mother, and, commingling 
 with the rest of her blood, destroys its purity, con- 
 taminates, vitiates it. 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray is quite wrong, I apprehend, in 
 assuming that there is, in any case, a direct vascu- 
 
6 Essays on the 
 
 lar connection between the foetus and its mother. 
 Nor does the assumption appear to me at all neces- 
 sary to establish the theory. But waiving, for the 
 present, all discussion of that point, it may here be 
 observed that Mr. M'Gillivray regards the influence 
 exerted by the male on the female animal, through 
 the medium of the foetus, as constitutional ; and 
 perhaps the best general expression of the theory 
 is, that the foetus, partaking, as it must, of the 
 characters or peculiarities of its father, inoculates 
 therewith the blood, and, generally, the system, of 
 its mother. 
 
 The subject now opened up is certainly one of 
 great interest in general physiology, as well as of 
 considerable practical importance to breeders. It 
 cannot but be interesting to inquire whether the 
 fact instanced in Lord Morton's mare, is or is not a 
 general law in animal physiology ; and, if it be, 
 whether and how far it is modified in its operation, 
 in different animals, and under different circum- 
 stances. But to the human physiologist, and to 
 the physician, it is of more immediate interest to 
 inquire whether or not the fact extends also to his 
 own species ; and, if it does, to ascertain how far 
 it applies, and whether it does not admit of illustra- 
 tion by, and serve itself, in its turn, to illustrate 
 certain known facts in regard to, the communication 
 and the constitutional effects of the syphilitic and 
 other morbific poisons, the scrofulous diathesis, &c. 
 And, in particular, it can hardly fail to suggest some 
 such curious questions as the following, viz. : 
 
Foetus in Utero. J 
 
 1st, Whether, in the case of a woman who has 
 been twice married, and borne children to both 
 husbands, the children borne to the second husband 
 ever, or generally, partake of the peculiarities of the 
 first husband. 
 
 2nd, Whether, in a family of several children, the 
 younger children, rather than the elder, are disposed, 
 cceteris partbus, to exhibit the characters of the 
 father. 
 
 3rd, Whether a woman who has borne several 
 children by the same husband, may not ultimately 
 acquire some of the physical characters, or at least 
 imbibe and manifest some of the morbid tendencies, 
 of the latter. 
 
 In treating further of this singular subject, I shall 
 first state the facts at present known to me regard- 
 ing it ; and, secondly, consider the theories offered in 
 explanation of it. 
 
 L In regard to the facts of the subject, these will 
 be most conveniently noticed, first in relation to the 
 lower animals; and, secondly, in relation to the 
 human species, 
 
 (1.) As regards the brute creation: Besides the 
 instance already quoted of the mare belonging to 
 Lord Morton, there is another similar case recorded. 
 A mare belonging to Sir Gore Ouseley was covered 
 by a zebra, and gave birth to a striped hybrid. The 
 year following, the same mare was covered by a 
 thoroughbred horse, and the next succeeding year 
 by another horse. Both the foals thus produced 
 were striped, i.e., partook of the character of the 
 
8 Essays on the 
 
 zebra.* And it is stated by Haller, and also by 
 Becker, that when a mare has had a -mule by an 
 ass, and afterwards a foal by a horse, the foal ex- 
 hibits traces of the ass.f 
 
 In the foregoing cases, the mares were covered, in 
 the first instance, by animals of a different species 
 from themselves. But cases are recorded of mares 
 covered in every instance by horses, but by different 
 horses, oh different occasions where the offspring 
 partook of the characters of the horse, by which 
 impregnation was first effected. Of this Mr. M'Gil- 
 livray gives two examples. Thus, in several foals, in 
 the Royal stud at Hampton Court, got by the horse 
 Actceon, there w r ere unequivocal marks of the horse 
 Colonel : their dams, however, had been covered 
 by Colonel the previous year. Again, a colt, the 
 property of the Earl of Suffield, got by Laurel, so 
 resembled another horse, Camel, " that it was whis- 
 pered, nay, even asserted, at Newmarket, that he 
 must have been got by Camel." It was ascertained, 
 however, that the mother of the colt was covered, 
 the previous year, by Camel. 
 
 It has often been observed, also, that a well-bred 
 bitch, if she have been impregnated by a mongrel- 
 dog, w T ill not, although lined subsequently by a pure 
 dog, bear thorough-bred puppies in the next two or 
 three litters. J 
 
 * M'Gillivray, " Aberdeen Journal," March 28, 1849. Paint- 
 ings of these animals and their skins are said to be preserved in 
 the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 
 
 t Haller, Element. Physio]., viii. p. 104 ; Becker, Physic. Sub- 
 terran. Lips., 1703. Quoted from Dunglison's Physiology, vol. ii. 
 p. 387. 
 
 J Kirkes' Handbook of Physiology, p. 613. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 9 
 
 The like occurrence has been noticed in respect of 
 the sow. A sow of the black and white breed 
 (known as Mr. Western's breed) became pregnant 
 by a boar of the wild breed, of a deep chestnut 
 colour. The pigs produced were duly mixed, the 
 colour of the boar being in some very predominant. 
 The sow being afterwards put to a boar of the same 
 breed with her own, some of the produce were 
 observed to be stained or marked with the chestnut 
 colour that prevailed in the former litter. And, on 
 a subsequent impregnation, the boar being still of 
 the same breed as the sow, some of the litter were 
 also slightly marked with the chestnut colour. 
 What adds to the value of the fact now stated is, 
 that in the course of many years' observation, the 
 breed in question was never known to produce pro- 
 geny having the smallest tinge of the chestnut 
 colour.* 
 
 Breeders of cattle are familiar with analogous 
 facts as occurring in the cow. A pure Aberdeen- 
 shire heifer was served with a pure Teeswater bull 
 to whom she had ^first-cross calf. The following sea- 
 son, the same cow was served with a pure Aberdeen- 
 shire bull ; the produce was a cross calf, which at 
 two years old had very long horns, the parents both 
 
 * Philosophical Transactions for 1821, p. 23. "Apart from a 
 state of domestication," says i\tr. M'Grillivray, " I do not believe 
 that there is one solitary instance in which an animal has produced 
 offspring of various colours. Animals, left entirely to the opera- 
 tion of natural causes, never exhibit this sporting of colours ; they 
 are to be distinguished by various and often beautiful shades of 
 colour ; but then each species is true to its own family tjpe, even 
 to a few hairs or small parts of a feather.'' 
 
io Essays on the 
 
 hummel.* A pure Aberdeenshire cow was served, 
 in 1845, with, a cross bull i.e., an animal produced 
 between a first-cross cow and a pure Teeswater bull. 
 To this bull she had a cross calf. Next season she 
 was served with a pure Aberdeenshire bull the 
 calf was quite a cross in shape and colour, f 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray, after narrating the whole of the 
 foregoing examples, says : " Many more instances 
 might be cited, did time permit. Among cattle and 
 horses they are of every -day occurrence." 
 
 (2.) As regards the human species. The facts 
 bearing on this division of the subject are exceed- 
 ingly few, and not to be relied on ; and the observa- 
 tions which follow are intended rather to suggest 
 and direct, than to satisfy, inquiry. 
 
 Dr. Allen Thomson, in his article on Generation, 
 in the " Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology," 
 remarks : " It is affirmed that the human female, 
 when twice married, bears occasionally to the second 
 husband, children resembling the first, both in 
 bodily structure and mental powers." And Dr. 
 George Ogilvie, of this city, informs me of a case, 
 which fell under his own observation, where a 
 woman was twice married, and had children by 
 both husbands, and where the children by both 
 marriages were scrofulous, although only the first 
 husband had marks of that diathesis ; the woman 
 herself, and her second husband being to all 
 appearance quite healthy. 
 
 Dr. Ogilvie's case is clearly beset by so many 
 sources of fallacy, that we cannot venture at pre- 
 
 * M'Grillivray, loc. cit. f M'(jilliviay, loc. cit. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 1 1 
 
 sent to regard it as a case in point. Dr. Thomson 
 does not bring forward any instances, nor offer any 
 proof, in support of his statement ; and, indeed, he 
 gives it, without saying whether he thinks it well 
 or ill-founded. Any such statement, it is plain, 
 based on observation of the children of European 
 parents i.e., where the female and both her hus- 
 bands and their children are all white must be 
 comparatively difficult of verification ; but it is 
 equally plain that means exist for subjecting it to a 
 pretty decisive test. There are equally distinct 
 breeds of the human family as of any of the lower 
 animals ; and all that seems requisite in regard to 
 determining the question under consideration is, 
 to observe accurately whether the children of 
 European parents, where the woman has, in the 
 first instance, had offspring by a negro, exhibit 
 traces of the latter in the colour of the skin, the 
 form of the features, &c. ; or, vice versa, whether 
 the children of negro parents, where the woman 
 had, first of all, been impregnated by a European, 
 exhibit the peculiarities of the latter. Of the 
 former case, a medical friend informs me that he 
 recollects hearing of an instance of the kind as 
 occurring in this neighbourhood, but cannot vouch 
 for the truth of it. Of the latter case, if the 
 general fact applies to the human species, instances 
 must abound in our West India colonies, in the 
 United States of America, and in other parts of 
 the world. My colleague Dr. Dyce tells me, that 
 he has certainly known one instance (if not more) 
 where a Creole woman bore fair children to a white 
 
12 Essays on the 
 
 man ; and that the same woman had afterwards to 
 a Creole man other children, who bore much re- 
 semblance to the white man, both in features and 
 in complexion. But two very intelligent friends 
 the one a West India proprietor, the other a medical 
 man both long resident in Jamaica, tell me that 
 they never noticed, nor ever heard of an instance 
 of the kind, although connections of that sort are 
 common there, and children born under such cir- 
 cumstances very numerous. It is singular, indeed, 
 if instances of the fact in question do occur, and 
 still more, if they are of frequent occurrence, that 
 they should not be notorious. It is conceivable, 
 however, and by no means improbable, that cases 
 do exist, but that they have been overlooked from 
 the traces of the European being so minute as to 
 escape ordinary observation, and that the fact has 
 remained unknown from special attention never 
 having been directed to it. 
 
 If the male does exert any such influence as is 
 here in question on the constitution and the repro- 
 ductive powers of the female, it is conceivable that, 
 by each successive impregnation effected by him, 
 that influence may be increased ; and, if so, the 
 younger children begotten by him, rather than the 
 elder, might be expected, cceteris paribus, to bear 
 their father's image. And this more special fact, if 
 ascertained, would establish also the more general 
 one. I am not aware, however, of any specific 
 facts bearing upon it, nor of any popular notions 
 regarding it. But my colleague Dr. Laing is cog- 
 nizant of the case of an English gentleman who 
 
Foetus in Utero. 13 
 
 had a large family by a negro woman, in the West 
 Indies, and where the children successively ex- 
 hibited more and more the European features and 
 complexion. 
 
 But, however this may be, there is a popular 
 belief that, in the course of years, a woman cornes 
 to resemble her husband, and that not merely in 
 respect of temper, disposition, or habits of thought, 
 but in bodily appearance. But, in as far as the 
 notion may hold good, it may be true only of the 
 features, and of these only as they indicate or be- 
 speak the inward feelings of the mind, which, from 
 long and familiar intercourse, may, to a certain 
 extent, become common to man and wife. In as 
 far as the notion is true in any other respect, and 
 the parties have had several children, it may sug- 
 gest the question, whether the assimilation is not 
 referable to an influence exerted by the husband, 
 through the medium of the foetus in utero, on the 
 constitution of the wife ? The question is probably 
 an idle one, and the notion only a popular error. 
 In as far, however, as there is anything in it, the 
 explanation suggested gives a peculiar, and it may 
 be added, a physiological significancy to the lan- 
 guage of Scripture relative to man and wife, at 
 least when their intercourse has been fruitful 
 "They twain shall be one flesli" 
 
 It is of more immediate interest, however, and of 
 greater practical moment, to ascertain whether, 
 through the medium of the foetus, the husband 
 may impart to his wife either the syphilitic virus, 
 or the scrofulous diathesis, or any other constitu- 
 
14 Essays on the 
 
 tional morbid tendency (e.g. insanity) which he 
 may possess. Facts are wanting on this subject ; 
 but it is not undeserving of patient inquiry. Dr. 
 Ogilvie's case, formerly referred to, if it could be 
 relied on, would be an instance of it. Before the 
 mother could have imparted the scrofulous taint to 
 her offspring by the second husband, she must her- 
 self have imbibed it from her first husband through 
 
 o 
 
 the medium of his offspring while in utero. And, 
 although still seemingly free of the taint, it may 
 have required only the appropriate external con- 
 ditions to call it into full activity in her own per- 
 son. And, with regard to the syphilitic poison, 
 there is no difficulty in understanding, and it is 
 quite within the bounds of probability, that the 
 foetus, if contaminated with it by its father, may 
 convey it to the mother. Messrs. Maunsell and 
 Evanson, after mentioning that they have notes of 
 the case of a syphilitic child, whose mother had 
 been infected by a former husband (they do not say 
 in what way) and to all appearance cured five 
 years before its birth the father of the child (her 
 second husband) being in good health, state that 
 their experience would enable them to adduce many 
 curious facts bearing on the communication of the 
 syphilitic poison.* Perhaps their experience might 
 furnish an affirmative solution of the question at 
 issue. It has been affirmed, indeed, that a man 
 who has once had syphilis, but been seemingly 
 cured of it for many years, may yet so retain the 
 
 * On the Management and Diseases of Children, 5th edit. pp. 
 452-3. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 15 
 
 taint of it as to contaminate his offspring, without, 
 at the same time, tainting his wife. Very possibly. 
 But this does not prove that he may not contami- 
 nate his wife also ; and the observation itself is in 
 that respect fallacious, inasmuch as in any given 
 case of the kind, the wife may really have imbibed 
 the virus, although in a latent form, and might 
 subsequently give proof of the reality of the fact 
 by tainting the offspring begotten by another and a 
 perfectly healthy husband. Adopting this view, it 
 may be found of importance, in contemplating 
 marriage with a widow, to inquire into the consti- 
 tutional peculiarities of her deceased husband. 
 
 II. Of the general fact now under consideration, 
 and clearly established in respect of the lower 
 animals, only two explanations, that are at all 
 rational, have been offered. The first is that sug- 
 gested by the great Haller, who ascribes it to a 
 permanent impression made by the semen of the 
 male on the genitals, and more particularly on the 
 ova, of the female ; the second, that suggested by 
 Mr. M'Gillivray, who ascribes it to an influence 
 exerted by the foetus in utero on the constitution of 
 the mother. The notion entertained by Sir Everard 
 Home and others, that it is an affair of the im- 
 agination, seems too absurd to require serious con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Haller's knowledge of 'the subject appears to 
 have been very limited, and his explanation of it to 
 have been offered incidentally. He was aware that 
 when a mare has had a mule by an ass, and after- 
 
1 6 Essays on the 
 
 wards a foal by a horse, the foal exhibits traces of 
 the ass ; and he remarks, " that the female organs 
 of the mare seem to be corrupted by the unequal 
 copulation with the ass,"* *.., that the semen of the 
 latter exerts an influence on the genitals, and, of 
 course, on the ova of the mare, which appears sub- 
 sequently on the impregnation of these ova by 
 males of her own species. t 
 
 It may be stated, in support of Haller's theory, 
 that, in the case of birds, a single intercourse is 
 known to impregnate many eggs which are laid 
 successively after it ; but, on the other hand, the 
 influence of such intercourse extends only to the 
 eggs of one season, or rather of one brood, the 
 several eggs being laid in tolerably quick succes- 
 sion, and all of them probably in a state of maturity, 
 and actually impregnated at the time of that inter- 
 course. This fact, therefore, goes but a short way 
 to favour Haller's theory, and may, indeed, be said 
 to tell as much against as for it. And if it shall 
 be clearly ascertained (as seems presently to be the 
 belief of physiologists), that any single ovum re- 
 mains but a short time in the ovary, Haller's theory 
 must be given up. But even if it could be shown 
 that an ovum may remain in the ovary for a series 
 
 * Dunglison's Physiology, vol. ii. p. 387. 
 
 t Dr. Kirkes also appears to regard the cause as a local one. 
 Referring to Lord Morton's case, he observes, "The single im- 
 pregnation, by the seminal fluid of the quagga, had impressed its 
 character not only on the ovum then impn gnated, but on the three 
 following ova impregnated by horses." Handbook of Physiology, 
 p. 614. Such, too, is Mr. _ Mayo s view. Physiology, 2nd Ed., 
 p. 490. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 17 
 
 of years, the fact would be of little value, unless it 
 could also be shown that the semen can exert some 
 definite kind of influence on an ovum, which it 
 does not at the time actually impregnate. There 
 seems little probability, however, of this being 
 done ; and there is one fact known in regard to the 
 ova which makes it difficult to conceive it possible 
 the fact, namely, that unripe or immature ova lie 
 deeply imbedded in the stroma of the ovary. 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray's theory seems to me to meet the 
 whole facts of the case, and to derive support from 
 a great variety of facts in regard to the reception 
 and constitutional effects of morbific poisons and 
 morbid diatheses. 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray, indeed, supposes, as was for- 
 merly noticed, that there is a direct vascular con- 
 nection between the foetus in utero and its mother ; 
 and he seems to consider the validity of his theory 
 to hinge on this assumption. The assumption, 
 however, is untenable, nor is it at all necessary for 
 the establishment of the theory. The researches of 
 Dr. John Reid and of Mr. Goodsir, on the structure 
 of the placenta, have demonstrated that the con- 
 nection is indirect only the foetus and the mother 
 imbibing materials from each other, very much in 
 the same way that the lacteal vessels take up the 
 nutritive portions of the food in its transit along 
 the small intestines ; or that the roots and leaves of 
 vegetables take up nourishment from the soil and 
 the atmosphere, the materials imbibed, in each 
 case, passing through a pervious, but not a per- 
 forated, tube or membrane, and being taken up by 
 
 c 
 
1 8 Essays on the 
 
 a real act of absorption, during which act they are 
 more or less altered in their character, or assimi- 
 lated. But, independently of the considerations 
 now stated, it appears from the observations of 
 Prevost and Dumas, and of others, that the cor- 
 puscles of the foetal blood are differently shaped 
 from, and, in the later stages, larger than those of 
 the mother* a fact which shows, at least, that no 
 entire corpuscles of blood are transmitted from the 
 one to the other, and, indeed, taken in connection 
 with the facts ascertained as to the structure of the 
 placenta, proves that it is by transudation only that 
 the contents of the uterine and foetal vessels mutu- 
 ally pass into each other. 
 
 In so doing, the materials in question are more 
 or less altered in their character, or undergo what 
 physiologists term a process of assimilation. In 
 the case of the lacteal vessels, the chyle which 
 they contain can never be detected as such in the 
 alimentary mass ; nor is the sap of vegetables 
 precisely the same fluid that exists in the soil and 
 in the air. In like manner, the blood in the um- 
 bilical vessels doubtless differs from that existing 
 in the uterine sinuses. At the same time, the 
 assimilating process does not go the length probably 
 in any case of wholly changing the character of the 
 fluids concerned in it; and there is reason to 
 believe, that, in different cases, it proceeds to a 
 very different extent in some the change effected 
 
 * Alison's Outlines of Physiology, 3rd. edit. p. 426. Kirkes' 
 Handbook, pp. 66-7. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 19 
 
 being to a less extent than in others. And possibly, 
 in the case of the foetus and its mother, the amount 
 of the assimilation is not considerable. No inter- 
 change of corpuscles takes place, but, in respect of 
 the other constituents of the blood, it is difficult to 
 conceive why they should not be transmitted nearly 
 unchanged. Professor Simpson (the late Sir James), 
 of Edinburgh, has recently shown that the small- 
 pox virus may pass unaltered from the mother to 
 the child in her womb, and produce in it the actual 
 disease, even although, by reason of previous vac- 
 cination, the mother may herself remain unaffected 
 by it.* And a similar fact has long been known in 
 regard to the transmission of the syphilitic virus 
 from the mother to the foetus in utero. 
 
 We can, therefore, have no difficulty in under- 
 standing, in respect of the foetus itself, that, 
 although its connection with the mother is indirect 
 only and merely to the extent of allowing the pas- 
 sage of the liquor sanguinis, and although this may 
 even be so far altered in the passage, the constitu- 
 tional peculiarities, derived to it from its father, 
 and inherent in its blood, may, with the blood, be 
 imbibed by its mother. And when we reflect on 
 the length of time during which the connection 
 between them is kept up, the amount and the 
 activity of interstitial change continually going on 
 in the system of the foetus, the large quantity of 
 foetal blood that must eventually be taken into the 
 vessels of the mother, and the probability that the 
 
 * Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science for April, 1849. 
 
 c 2 
 
2O Essays on the 
 
 peculiar matter imparted by the male parent to tlie 
 ovum at the moment of impregnation (be its nature 
 what it may, and its quantity never so infinitesimal), 
 assimilates, like a ferment, much of the foetal blood 
 to itself, it does not seem too hard to be believed that 
 the blood and constitution generally of the mother 
 may, thereby, become so imbued with the peculiari- 
 ties of that parent, as to impart them to any off- 
 spring she may subsequently have by other males. 
 
 ABERDEEN, April, 30, 1849. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 In the foregoing essay a question occurs as to 
 whether, in the case of a woman who has been 
 twice married, and borne children by both husbands, 
 the children of the second marriage ever resemble 
 the mother's first husband (pp. 7 and 10). 
 
 The following additional cases, illustrative of this 
 question, have recently been communicated to me : 
 the first by my friend the Rev. Charles M'Combie, 
 of Tilly four, minister of Lumphanan, in Aberdeen- 
 shire ; the second by Professor (the late Sir James) 
 Simpson, of Edinburgh ; and the third by Professor 
 Pirrie, of Aberdeen : 
 
 1. Mrs. , a neighbour of Mr. M'Combie, was twice married, 
 
 and had issue by both husbands. The children of the first mar- 
 riage were five in number ; of the second, three. One of these 
 three, a daughter, bears an unmistakable resemblance to her 
 
Fcetus in Utcro. 21 
 
 mother's first husband. What makes the likeness the more dis- 
 cernible is, that there was the most marked difference, in their 
 features and general appearance, between the two husbands. 
 
 2. A young woman, residing in Edinburgh, and born of white 
 (Scottish) parents, but who a e mother sometime previous to her 
 marriage had a natural (mulatto) child by a negro man-servant, 
 in Edinburgh, exhibits distinct traces of the negro. Dr. Simpson, 
 whose patient the young woman at one time was, has had no 
 recent opportunities of satisfying himself as to the precise extent 
 to which the negro character prevails in her features ; but he re- 
 collects being struck with the resemblance, and noticed particularly 
 that the hair had the qualities characteristic of the riegro. 
 
 3. Mrs. H , apparently perfectly free from scrofula, married 
 
 a man who died of phthisis. She had one child by him, which 
 also died of phthisis. She next married a person who was to all 
 appearance equally healthy as herself, and had two children by 
 him, one of which died of phthisis, the other of tubercular 
 mesenteric disease having, at the same time, scofulous ulceration 
 of the under extremity. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON A SINGULAR RESULT, AS REGARDS THE FEMALE, OF 
 FRUITFUL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE ABORIGINAL 
 FEMALE OF CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD AND 
 THE EUROPEAN MALE ; AS OBSERVED AND VOUCHED 
 FOR BY THE COUNT DE STRZELECKI,* 
 
 As bearing more or less directly on the subject of 
 this Essay, the Observations following, as to the 
 Result of the intercourse above indicated, seem to 
 me not undeserving of consideration. They clearly 
 point to a constitutional influence of some kind as 
 exerted by the Male, through the medium of the 
 Foetus, on the system of the Female. 
 
 The Count de Strzelecki's own statement as to 
 the Result in question is this, " Whenever such 
 intercourse takes place, the native female is found to 
 
 * The subject matter of this Appendix is taken from that in 
 the author's pamphlet, "On a Remarkable Effect of Cross- 
 Breeding, " published in 1851 ; and this, the rather, because of 
 its being more fully treated of there than in the Essay in which it 
 first appeared in 1849. 
 
24 Essays on the 
 
 lose the power of conception on a renewal of inter- 
 course with the male of her own race, retaining only 
 that of procreating with the white men." * 
 
 Extraordinary as this statement is, it is not 
 lightly made ; nor have the opportunities enjoyed by 
 the Count de Strzelecki of making observations re- 
 garding it been small. He has " lived much (to use 
 his own words) amongst different races of abori- 
 gines, the natives of Canada, of the United 
 States, of California, Mexico, the South American 
 Republics, the Marquesas, Sandwich, and Society 
 Islands, and those of New Zealand and Australia." f 
 And, referring to the statement already quoted, the 
 Count observes "Hundreds of instances of this 
 extraordinary fact are on record in the writer's 
 memoranda, all recurring invariably under the same 
 circumstances, amongst the Hurons, Seminoles, Red 
 Indians, Yakies (Sinaloa), Mendosa Indians, 
 Araucos, South Sea Islanders, and natives of New 
 Zealand, New South Wales, and Van Dieman's 
 Land ; and all tending to prove that the sterility of 
 the female, which is relative only to one and not to 
 another male, is not accidental, but follows laws as 
 cogent, though as mysterious, as the rest of those 
 connected with generation."! 
 
 In the work in which the foregoing allegations 
 are made, Strzelecki does not state whether he 
 has ever met with exceptional cases, that is to say, 
 
 * " Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Dieman's 
 Land," p. 347. 
 t Ibid. p. 345. t Ibid, p. 347. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 25 
 
 cases where, after connection of the kind in ques- 
 tion, fruitful intercourse has taken place between a 
 native man and woman. But in a communication 
 on the subject with which he has favoured me, the 
 Count assures me, that he has never met with such 
 a case. " It has not (he writes me) come under my 
 cognizance to see or hear of a native female, who, 
 having a child with a European, had afterwards any 
 offspring with a male of her own race." And I am 
 informed by Professor Groodsir, and by Dr. Car- 
 michael, of Edinburgh, and by Dr. Maunsell, of 
 Dublin, that they have learned from independent 
 sources, that, as regards the aborigines of Australia, 
 Strzelecki's statement is unquestionable, and must 
 be regarded as the expression of a law of nature.* 
 
 Assuming that the fact is truly a law of nature, 
 and that it holds as absolutely and extensively as 
 Strzelecki's experience would lead us to infer, " it 
 is," as Professor Groodsir observes, "a very remark- 
 able one, and indicates a series of influences of high 
 import in the natural history of the human race." 
 What that import is, it may not be easy to compre- 
 hend, nor perhaps is it a short line that will fathom 
 it. But it seems to indicate, how little account 
 
 ' "The intercourse of Kamehamha's men [people] and tbat of 
 the whale ships [manned by Europeans], which now began to 
 anchor in their waters, was sadly disastrous to the native constitu- 
 tion and morals, poisoniog the fountains of health, and inducing 
 premature decay and barrenness. " This observation, though by 
 no means very definite, seems to point to the fact alluded to in the 
 text. See an article entitled " On the Sandwich or Hawaiian 
 Islands," in the "New York Biblical Repository and Critical 
 Review," for July, 1849. 
 
26 Essays on the 
 
 soever might be taken of it by the author of " The 
 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," that 
 there is in nature a principle of degradation, as well 
 as a principle of development. The fact itself, it 
 may be observed, is brought forward by Strzelecki 
 as affording an explanation, and as being the chief 
 cause of the gradual diminution and ultimate ex- 
 tinction of the native tribes in most parts of the 
 New World, which follow the introduction of the 
 European races. "Wherever the white man has 
 set his foot-mark, there the print of the native foot 
 is obliterated ; and as the tender plant withers 
 beneath his tread, so withers the aboriginal in- 
 habitant of the soil."* And "human interfer- 
 ence," says Strzelecki, "to avert this melancholy 
 consequence has been hitherto of no avail ; a 
 charter for colonization granted to one race becomes 
 virtually the decree for the extinction of the 
 other." f 
 
 * Brooke's " Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes, ' VD!. i. 
 p. 12. 
 
 t Strzelecki records the following remarkable circumstance 
 which came within his own personal knowledge: A party of 
 aborigines in Van Dieman's Land, to the number of 210, were 
 deported by government in 1835 to Flinders' Island, on account of 
 aggressions made by them on the colonists in their neighbourhood, 
 by whom, however, they had been contaminated. They had only 
 fourteen children born among them during the next seven years. 
 It is true that, in the course of that time their own numbers had 
 dwindled away to fifty-four. Still, the small number of births is 
 singular, and contrasts strikingly with the fact, that " each 
 family, in the interior of New South Wales, uncoutaminated by 
 contact with the whites, swarms with children." (Op. cit. pp. 
 350-5.) 
 
F&tus in Utero. 27 
 
 Very various causes, doubtless, concur to bring 
 about this result. The one assigned by Strzelecki 
 as the chief is obviously quite adequate, if a real 
 one, to its production. And should his belief as 
 to the reality of this cause be confirmed, and should 
 it further appear, that the principle involved in it 
 applies only to aboriginal females contaminated by 
 European males, and not to European females con- 
 taminated by aboriginal males, that is to say, should 
 the former class of females only, and not the latter, 
 be rendered sterile to males of their own race by 
 such foreign intercourse, the discovery can scarcely 
 fail, not merely to exhibit the predominancy of the 
 white over the dark races of men, in a particular 
 not previously suspected, but to indicate that the 
 designs of Providence, in regard to the human 
 family in this stage of existence, embrace the ulti- 
 mate extinction of the primitive varieties of the 
 dark races, or at least of certain of these. Their 
 physical peculiarities and their social degradation 
 a mystery, if not a standing memorial of a curse 
 visited on their progenitors, in the times of mira- 
 culous interposition ; the purpose of their exist- 
 ence in respect of this earth a mystery also, yet 
 somehow subservient, seemingly, to that of their 
 more favoured brethren ; their end, after that pur- 
 pose is served extirpation ? But these are ques- 
 tions which, besides that they are foreign to the 
 object of this paper, are, perhaps, too deep for 
 human penetration. 
 
 It may not, however, be out of place to remark, 
 that it may form part of the plan of Providence 
 
28 Essays on the 
 
 that certain races of men should hold given por- 
 tions of the earth's surface till certain other races, 
 and in particular oar own Anglo-Saxon race, are 
 ready to step in and occupy them, those primitive 
 races then disappearing ; and that the law in ques- 
 tion may be directly subservient to the extermina- 
 tion of these. The rapid increase of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race during the last two centuries, its wide 
 diffusion over the globe, and its superiority over 
 every race with which it has come in contact, are 
 in harmony with that supposition. It has recently 
 been stated, with regard to this race, that while in 
 1620 it numbered only about six millions, and was 
 almost exclusively confined to the United Kingdom, 
 it now numbers sixty millions of human beings, 
 planted upon all the islands and continents of the 
 earth, and fast absorbing or displacing all the 
 sluggish or barbarous tribes on the continents of 
 America, Africa, Asia, and the islands of the sea ; 
 and that, increasing everywhere by an intense ratio 
 of progression, it is estimated that, if no physical 
 revolution supervene to check its propagation, it 
 will number eight hundred millions of human 
 beings in less than 150 years from the present 
 time.* 
 
 It seems tolerably certain that Strzelecki's law 
 does not extend to the Negro race the fertility of 
 the Negro female with the male of her own race 
 not being apparently impaired by previous fruitful 
 
 * American Paper. Quoted from " Chambers' s Edinburgh 
 Journal," for July, 1850. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 29 
 
 intercourse with the European male, a kind of 
 intercourse which is notoriously common in all the 
 West India Islands, the Brazils, and the slave- 
 holding States of North America. But it is yet, I 
 apprehend, undetermined, and it must surely be in- 
 teresting to ascertain whether the law applies to 
 the Mongolian and pure Malay races, inhabiting 
 China, Japan, Borneo, and the islands of the 
 Eastern Archipelago. And, if it should, one cannot 
 help considering, in connection with it, the footing 
 which Britain has of late acquired in those regions, 
 the probable rapid increase of our countrymen 
 there and in Australia, Van Dieman's Land, and 
 New Zealand, and the Anglo-Saxon nation rising 
 up as with mushroom growth in California, to over- 
 spread the western coast of America, and asking 
 whether, through the instrumentality of that law, 
 the native inhabitants of those parts of the East 
 may not yet be rooted out ? 
 
 But our knowledge of this law must be far wider 
 and more precise than it yet is, to enable us con- 
 fidently to speculate in regard to it. We do not 
 even know for certain that it holds absolutely over 
 the races specified by Strzelecki, or that the Negro 
 race is wholly exempt from it. It is conceivable, in 
 regard to the former, as Strzelecki himself frankly 
 allows to me, that there may be exceptions to it, 
 though he has met with none ; and, in regard to 
 the latter, that it may be in some degree subject to 
 it. It is well known, indeed, that in the West 
 India islands, under the system of slavery at least, 
 
30 Essays on the 
 
 the black population tends rather to diminish than 
 increase, and that it can only be adequately main- 
 tained by continual importations from Africa. 
 Whether that diminution is in any degree owing to 
 the operation of Strzelecki's law, it is perhaps at 
 present impossible to say. 
 
 I would only remark further, that in arguing 
 here from Strzelecki's inference, it is only pro- 
 visionally, and on the supposition of its being a 
 fact ; and if a fact, then, of course, a law of nature ; 
 and that in this, as in every other part of this 
 Essay, my object is to suggest and direct inquiry, 
 not to dogmatize. A correspondent, indeed, laughs 
 at me for having elsewhere given heed to that in- 
 ference. On the other hand, a writer in the 
 " Edinburgh Review " (No. CLXXXIV., p. 456, 
 foot note), referring to one of my papers in the 
 Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, 
 suggests that Strzelecki should " excuse " me for 
 treating it as nothing more than an hypothesis for 
 the present ! Considering, however, on the one 
 hand, the astounding nature of the inference, and, 
 on the other, the high character of Strzelecki as a 
 philosophic observer, as well as the extent of his 
 observations (some hundreds of instances of the 
 phenomenon without a single exception), I humbly 
 submit that, until the inference shall be either fully 
 established or shown to be fallacious, the proper 
 course in regard to it is, " to keep the mean between 
 the two extremes of too much stiffness in refusing, 
 and of too much easiness in admitting " it, or (in 
 
Fcztus in Utero. 31 
 
 the words of the wise and good Bishop Butler) to 
 keep " in the middle state of mind," " between a 
 full satisfaction of the truth of it, and a satisfaction 
 of the contrary " this middle state of mind con- 
 sisting " in a serious apprehension that it may be 
 true, joined with doubt whether it be so." 
 (Analogy, Part II., Conclusion.) 
 
ESSAY SECOND. 
 
 ON THE FOETUS IN UTERO AS INOCULATING THE MATERNAL 
 
 WITH THE PECULIARITIES OF THE PATERNAL 
 
 ORGANISM ; 
 
 AND 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE THEREBY EXERTED BY THE MALE ON 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE REPRODUCTIVE 
 
 POWERS OF THE FEMALE (continued). 
 
FROM 
 
 THE EDINBURGH MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 
 For October, 1850. 
 
ESSAY SECOND. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IN UTEftO, ETC. 
 
 IN a paper published last, year in the Edinburgh 
 Monthly Journal of Medical Science, I brought to- 
 gether a considerable number of instances which 
 serve clearly to show that the peculiarities of a male 
 animal that has once had fruitful intercourse with 
 a female can sometimes be more or less distinctly 
 recognized in the offspring of subsequent connections 
 of that female with other males. I therein stated 
 that of this singular phenomenon two explanations 
 used formerly to be offered, one class of physio- 
 logists referring it to a permanent impression made 
 somehow by the semen of the first male on the ova 
 of the female, another class ascribing it to an 
 abiding influence exerted by that male on the 
 imagination of the female, and recurring to, and 
 operating on, her mind at the time of her connection 
 subsequently with other males. At the same time 
 I expressed an opinion that neither of these expla- 
 nations could be regarded as satisfactory ; and I 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Essays on the 
 
 endeavoured to show that an explanation offered by 
 Mr. M'Gillivray, of Huntly, is the true one, namely, 
 that while, as all allow, a portion of the mother's 
 blood is continually passing by absorption (and 
 assimilation) into the body of the foetus, in order to 
 its nutrition and development, a portion of the blood 
 of the foetus is as constantly passing, in like manner, 
 into the body of the mother ; that as this com- 
 mingles there with the general mass of the mother's 
 own blood, it inoculates her system with the con- 
 stitutional qualities of the foetus ; and that, as 
 these qualities are in part derived to the foetus from 
 its male progenitor, the peculiarities of the latter 
 are thereby so engrafted on the system of the female 
 as to be communicable by her to any offspring she 
 may subsequently have by other males. 
 
 Since the publication of that paper I have learnt 
 nothing to shake, but much to support, the notion 
 of inoculation therein suggested ; and have ascer- 
 tained that many among the agricultural body in 
 this district are familiar, to a degree that is annoy- 
 ing to them, with the facts then adduced in illustra- 
 tion of it, finding that, after breeding crosses, their 
 cows, though served with bulls of their own breed, 
 yield crosses still, or rather mongrels ; nay, that 
 they were already impressed with the idea of con- 
 tamination of blood as the cause of the phenomenon, 
 possibly, however, on the principle (adverted to 
 by D'Alembert) that the doctrine so intuitively com- 
 mended itself to their minds as soon as stated, that 
 they fancied they were told nothing but what they 
 
Foetus in Utero. 37 
 
 knew before, so just is the observation, that 
 " truth proposed is much more easily perceived than 
 without such proposal it is discovered."* 
 
 But with regard to any one of the cases formerly 
 given, as instances of inoculation by the foetus, I 
 would not now assert that it is an unequivocal in- 
 stance; nor would I now affirm that the notion, enter- 
 tained by Sir Everard Home and others, of all of 
 them being an affair of the imagination, is so absurd 
 as it once seemed to me. The careful considera- 
 tion, recently, of cases seemingly identical in kind 
 with these, save and except that there never was 
 coitus between the mother of the animals and the 
 male Animal which they resembled, has convinced 
 me that it is not so clear a matter that they may 
 not be referable to the agency of mental causes. A 
 setter bitch, for example, takes a fancy to a cur dog, 
 and, without ever having access to him, produces 
 once and again, to dogs of her own breed, whelps 
 bearing a decided resemblance to the cur. I am 
 still inclined to think, however, that there are good 
 grounds for believing that the greater number 
 at least of the cases are truly referable to the 
 principle of inoculation ; and it is very clear that 
 such facts as those exemplified in the progeny of 
 the setter are noways adverse to that theory. 
 
 It seems to me probable, indeed, that future in- 
 quiry will demonstrate that there are in nature two 
 sets of cases connected with the peculiarities of off- 
 spring, analogous, nay, identical, in their external 
 characters, yet essentially different in their origin 
 
 * Archbishop Seeker, Works (Ed. 1811), Vol. iii. p. 237. 
 
38 Essays on the 
 
 and cause, the one referable to mental states in 
 one or other of the parents, and oftenest in the 
 female parent, the other to a change effected in 
 the constitutional powers of the female by a physical 
 (organic) agency originally extrinsic to her, but 
 inherent in a former foetus by derivation from its 
 male progenitor, and conveyed to her, in the way of 
 inoculation, by that fcetus while in utero. 
 
 To establish this, and to determine also the relative 
 proportion of the two sets of cases, together with 
 the comparative efficacy of their respective causes, 
 and the conditions that are essential to the agency 
 of each cause, would be an achievement in physiology 
 of great general interest, and, to breeders, of much 
 practical value. It were idle, perhaps, to engage 
 in so wide and difficult an inquiry with any hope 
 of complete success. But as to some important 
 points, and in particular as to the main question 
 here at issue, experiments in breeding on the lower 
 animals, so conducted as to be free from essential 
 sources of fallacy, might, I am informed, easily be 
 made ; and as they could be carried on on the large 
 scale, decisive results might ere long be obtained. 
 Some suggestions as to the kind of experiments 
 which might be instituted, and the mode of con- 
 ducting them, will be offered in the sequel. As 
 to their probable issue, it were, perhaps, wise at 
 present not to hazard an opinion. But, " if reason 
 can sometimes go farther than imagination can 
 venture to follow," the latter can sometimes go in 
 advance of, and pioneer the way to, the former. 
 And possibly in this instance, if, leaving reason to 
 
Foetus in Utero. 39 
 
 follow at her leisure in the broad day and clear 
 sunshine, we hold on our way, warily, in the dim 
 twilight, in company with imagination, we may, 
 under her guidance, securely reach a post in advance, 
 and have the satisfaction afterwards of finding 
 reason treading in our steps. 
 
 Before entering on the consideration of mental 
 states in either parent, as influencing the nutrition 
 and development of the foetus in such a manner as 
 to cause the latter to resemble a male animal not its 
 progenitor, I purpose, first, in this second Essay, to 
 submit some additional observations on the theory 
 of inoculation, with the view of placing this doctrine 
 on a firmer footing. 
 
 (1.) Without at present raising any question 
 as to the nature of the phenomenon, I may remark, 
 generally, that, since the publication of my former 
 paper, further inquiry has satisfied me of the truth 
 of an observation there quoted from Mr. M'Gillivray, 
 namely, that cases of the kind given as instances 
 of inoculation of the maternal system by a former 
 foetus are, as regards cattle and dogs, " of every 
 day occurrence ; " and judging from the two remark- 
 able cases presently to be given of the like pheno- 
 menon in the sheep, they are probably equally 
 common in other classes of animals. I have not, 
 indeed, seen any such myself, but opportunities for 
 doing so have not come in my way ; and the infor- 
 mation I have received is only of a general kind, 
 sufficient to excite to further inquiry, but wanting 
 
4O Essays on the 
 
 in specific details. There is one fact, however, 
 kindly communicated to me by Sir John S. Forbes, 
 of Pitsligo, which, as perhaps bearing on this sub- 
 ject, it seems proper to mention. It is the fact, 
 observable within these few years at all our great 
 cattle shows, that among the high-bred heifers and 
 cows of the Angus polled breed, fat is laid on in 
 lumps about the tail, by feeding of the most 
 moderate description a feature heretofore con- 
 sidered to be characteristic of the Teeswater breed, 
 and which, as occurring in the breed in question, 
 though usually attributed to improved management 
 and high breeding, may, perhaps, have its true 
 solution in Mr. M'Grillivray's theory, on the sup- 
 position that the mother, however pure her own 
 original breed and that of the father, had previously 
 borne offspring to a Teeswater bull. 
 
 The following are the cases illustrative of the 
 effect on the procreative powers of the ewe of 
 previous sexual intercourse with a ram of a different 
 breed ; the one communicated to me by my friend 
 Dr. William Wells, of the island of Grenada ; the 
 other, by Mr. William M'Combie, Tilly four, in 
 Aberdeenshire. 
 
 1. A small flock of ewes, belonging to Dr. Wells, were tupped 
 a few years ago by a ram procured for that purpose from the 
 manager of a neighbouring estate. The ewes were all of them 
 white and woolly. The ram was of quite another breed, being 
 (besides having other marks of difference) of a chocolate colour, 
 and hairy like the goat. The progeny were of course crosses, 
 bearing, however, a great resemblance to the male parent. 
 
 The next season Dr. Wells procured another ram of precisely 
 the same breed as his ewes. The progeny of this second connec- 
 
Foetus in Utero. 41 
 
 tion showed distinct marks of resemblance to the former ram in 
 coloiir and covering. And the like phenomenon, occurring under 
 the like circumstances, was noticed in the lambs of some other 
 adjoining estates in Grenada, and was the occasion of equal sur- 
 prise and perplexity to the owners of the animals. 
 
 2. Six very superior pure-bred 6Zac&-faced horned ewes, the 
 property of Mr. Harry Shaw, in the parish of Leochel Cushnie, in 
 Aberdeenshire, were tupped in the autumn of 1844, some of them 
 by a Leicester, i.e., a lo/h'te-faced and polled ram ; others of them 
 by a Southdown, i.e., a dim-faced and polled ram. The lambs 
 thus begotten were crosses. 
 
 In the autumn of 1845 the same ewes were tupped by a very 
 fine pure blacked-faced horned ram, i.e., one of exactly the same 
 breed as the ewes themselves. To Mr. Shaw's astonishment, the 
 lambs were all without exception polled and brownish in the face, 
 instead of being black-faced and horned. 
 
 In autumn 1846 the ewes were again served with another very 
 superior ram of their own breed. Again the lambs were mongrels. 
 They did not, indeed, exhibit so much of the characters of the 
 Leicester and Southdown breeds as did the lambs of the previous 
 year ; but two of them were polled, one c?wn-faced, with very 
 small horns, and the other three, white faced, with small round 
 horns only. Mr. Shaw at length parted with those fine ewes, 
 without obtaining from them one pure-bred lamb. 
 
 (2.) Of the analogous phenomenon, in any of the 
 aspects formerly specified, in the human species, I 
 have procured no additional examples. Inquiries 
 are on foot, in one or two of the West India Islands, 
 as to whether the offspring of negro parents, after 
 the female has had children by the European, ever 
 exhibit traces of the latter ; but the results have not 
 yet reached me. Dr. Maunsell, of Dublin, however, 
 has mentioned to me a case, bearing on the com- 
 munication of secondary syphilis, in too imperfect 
 a form, indeed, to warrant its being adduced as an 
 instance of the kind in question, but valuable as 
 
42 Essays on the 
 
 justifying the supposition formerly advanced, that 
 a woman may somehow acquire syphilis, but have 
 it in the latent form, and subsequently give proof 
 of the reality of the fact by the birth of a syphi- 
 litic child, got by a perfectly healthy man. It is 
 the case of a woman, who, as far as Dr. Maunsell 
 could learn, never herself exhibited any signs of 
 syphilis, yet produced a syphilitic child in a second 
 marriage, with a husband who never had the 
 disease.* 
 
 With regard to the communication of secondary 
 syphilis, in relation to Mr. M'Gillivray's theory, 
 Mr. (Sir James) Paget, of St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
 pital, makes an important suggestion. " I would 
 venture to suggest," Mr. Paget writes me, " that 
 you should try to find whether ever a woman derives 
 secondary syphilis from her husband, unless she con- 
 
 * Since the publication of my former paper I find tbat Dr. 
 Montgomery of Dublin has been beforehand with me in this ques- 
 tion as to syphilis ; and that he seems virtually, though obscurely, 
 to enunciate the doctrine of the constitutional character of the 
 phenomenon exemplified in Lord Morton's mare and Mr. Western's 
 breed of pigs. Referring to these well-known cases, Dr. Mont- 
 gomery remarks : "Such occurrences appear forcibly to suggest 
 a question, the correct solution of which would be of immense im- 
 portance in the history and treatment of disease. Is it possible 
 that a morbid taint, such as that of syphilis, for instance, having 
 been once communicated to the system of the female [by a con- 
 ception], may influence several ova, and so continue to manifest 
 itself in the offspring of subsequent conceptions, when impregna- 
 tion has been effected 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 is cer- 
 tainly in favour of the affirmative." Exposition of the Signs and 
 Symptoms of Pregnancy, p. 18. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 43 
 
 ceives by him. Facts bearing on this point might 
 prove that secondary syphilis is not communicated 
 directly by the seminal fluid, but by the child begotten 
 with it ; and this mode of inoculation being proved 
 would go far to prove the foundation of your [Mr. 
 M'Gillivray's] theory." I fear it will turn out, on 
 inquiry, that secondary syphilis may be transmitted 
 directly by the seminal fluid, independently of con- 
 ception ; but perhaps it may appear also that its 
 transmission in this way is occasional only and un- 
 certain, while it is very frequent, or almost inevitable, 
 when conception follows intercourse. And a com- 
 parative observation of this kind, if clear and un- 
 doubted, would be nearly equally decisive.* 
 
 (3.) In my former paper, I represent Mr. M'Gil- 
 livray as holding that there is a direct vascular 
 
 * Important as is Mr. Paget's suggestion, it may be difficult 
 successfully to follow it out. It appears, indeed, that of the chil- 
 dren horn syphilitic in the middle and higher classes of society, a 
 very large proportion derive the virus from the father a circum- 
 stance in itself favourable for the prosecution of the inquiry (see 
 Brit, and For. Med. Chir. Rev., No. XII., p. 348). But in several 
 such cases the mother never exhibits any manifest indication of 
 the virus in her own person (Op. cit., p. 347 Maunsell and 
 Evansbn on Diseases of Children, 5th edit., p. 452) : and although 
 she may not have imbibed the poison, the case given in the text 
 on the authority of Dr. Maunsell is sufficient to show that the 
 only certain criterion of her immunity may be her bearing a non- 
 syphilitic child in a second marriage with a perfectly healthy hus- 
 band a test which can be available only in a very few cases. If, 
 therefore, such cases of latent syphilis in the female are common, 
 Mr. Paget's inquiry may fail of an affirmative result only from in- 
 ability to test them. Possibly, however, the instances of developod 
 syphilis in the female, consequent on conception, may be numerous 
 enough, and sufficiently decided, to lead to that result. 
 
44 Essays on the 
 
 connection, and a continuous interchange of blood, 
 between the foetus in utero and its mother, and 
 also as regarding that sort of connection to be 
 essential to the validity of his theory of inocu- 
 lation. Mr. M'Gillivray, however, as I have since 
 discovered, does not hold any such opinion, nor 
 does he rest his theory on- so insecure a basis 
 as I fancied. His ideas regarding the structure 
 of the placenta, and the connection between the 
 mother and foetus, appear, in fact, to be substan- 
 tially those suggested by the late Dr. John Reid 
 and others, and now commonly received. 
 
 The mistake committed by me arose from some 
 expressions dropt by Mr. M'Gillivray in the course 
 of his paper, taken in connection with a case given 
 by him, and showing an empty state of the blood- 
 vessels of a foetal calf, whose mother had died of 
 a haemorrhage from the lungs, of three days' con- 
 tinuance. As this case seems to me to afford a 
 stronger support to his theory than I at first imagined, 
 and to be besides (though not unique *) a valuable 
 
 * There is a case, by Mery, in the " Memoires de 1' Academic 
 Royale des Sciences," 1708. But this case is too briefly recorded 
 to be of any physiological value whatever. It is as follows: 
 " Une femme grosse, qui toucbait a son terme, se tue d'une chute 
 tres rude presque sur le champ. On lui trouve 7 a 8 pintes de sang 
 dans la cavite du ventre, et tous ses vaisseaux sanguins entierement 
 epuises. Son enfant etait mort, mais sans aucune apparence de 
 blessure, et tous ses vaisseaux etaient vides de sang aussi bien que 
 ceux de la mere. Le corps du placenta etait encore attache a 
 toute la surface interieure de la matrice, oii il n'y avait aucun 
 sang extra vase*." (Op. cit., p. 37). Very possibly, in this case, 
 as suggested by my friend Dr. J. M. Duncan, of Edinburgh, the 
 womb may have been ruptured on its external aspect over the 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 45 
 
 contribution to our physiological knowledge, I snail 
 introduce it here, and take occasion to offer some 
 remarks upon it : 
 
 A cow in calf, and past the ordinary period of utero-gestation, 
 had, from some unknown cause, a slight rupture of the left lung. 
 A constant haemorrhage from the fissure proved fatal in three days. 
 On a post-mortem examination it was found that the haemorrhage 
 had taken place partly into the cavity of the chest, and partly 
 into the air-passages of the lung. A great part of the blood that 
 entered the lung had found its way upwards, and, being swallowed 
 by the animal, was passed along with the egesta. The animal 
 survived until but a very small quantity of blood remained in 
 the carcase. 
 
 The uterus, with its contents, was removed entire, and very 
 carefully and minutely examined by Mr. M'Gillivray. All the 
 vessels of the chorion, amnion, &c., were white, flaccid, and 
 empty. On making a section of the umbilical cord no blood 
 followed ; on applying a sliding squeeze on that portion of the cord, 
 and in a direction from the foetus, slight traces of blood appeared 
 at the cut ends of the umbilical arteries, but there was no flow, 
 not even drops. There was no blood in any part of the aorta or 
 vena cava ; none in the carotids or jugulars near the head ; none 
 in the external or internal iliac arteries, and large veins in the 
 ilio-femoral region ; none in the left ventricle of the heart the 
 right containing a small coagulum which might amount to about 
 half an ounce of blood. In short, there were not three ounces 
 of blood in the calf, taken with all its membranes and placenta.* 
 
 On the perusal, formerly, of this case I made but 
 little account of it ; and being impressed with the 
 unqualified allegation of various physiologists, that 
 
 centre of the placenta, and so deeply as to lay open both the foetal 
 and uterine vessels, in which event the bloodless condition of the 
 foetus would be referable, not to the passage of its blood by ab- 
 sorption into the maternal vessels, but to the direct escape of the 
 blood from its own vessels. 
 
 * Abridged from Mr. M'Gfillivray's paper in Aberdeen Journal 
 for March 21, 1849. 
 
46 Essays on the 
 
 " when a pregnant animal dies of haemorrhage, the 
 vessels of the foetus remain full of blood,"* I too 
 hastily concluded that some fallacy must attach to 
 it, or at least that, however it might be explained, it 
 was too slender a foundation whereon to rest the 
 doctrine (erroneously assumed as that intended) of 
 a direct vascular communication. 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray's real object in adducing the case 
 was to combat the opinion entertained by some 
 physiologists, that, while the foetus receives supplies 
 from the mother through the placenta, it returns 
 nothing from its own system to hers. " I am quite 
 aware (he says) that many physiologists maintain 
 that, in the highest species of animals, the blood 
 cannot be returned from the foetus to the mother 
 during utero-gestation." That this opinion is very 
 generally held by physiologists in this country 
 is quite certain. Dr. Alison, for instance, after 
 observing (on the authority of Magendie and of Dr. 
 David Williams, of Liverpool), that camphor and 
 oil injected into the blood of pregnant animals are 
 soon detected in the blood of the foetus ; but that 
 poison, injected into the umbilical arteries, although 
 mixing with the blood on its way from the foetus to 
 the placenta, does not affect the mother ; and that 
 fatal haemorrhage in the mother does not apparently 
 dimmish the fulness of the vessels of the foetus, 
 adds, " so that it would seem that the transmission of 
 fluids is almost entirely from the mother to the foetus. ' ' \ 
 
 * Magendie ; Physiology, by Milligan ; 2nd edit., p. 5G9. Dr. 
 D. Williams, Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, Vol. xxv., p. 102. 
 t Outlines of Physiology, 3rd edit., p. 426. In his History of 
 
'Foetus in Utero. 47 
 
 Again, Dr. Kirkes, referring to Professor Goodsir's 
 observations as to the intervention of two distinct 
 layers of nucleated cells between the foetal and 
 maternal portions of the placenta, speaks of the one 
 being " probably designed to separate from the 
 blood of the parent the materials destined for the 
 blood of the foetus," while the other " probably 
 serves for the absorption of the material secreted 
 by the other set of cells, and for its conveyance into 
 the blood-vessels of the foetus," * no idea, seem- 
 ingly, being entertained of a converse process. 
 Moreover, the view taken by most physiologists of 
 the destination of that portion of the foetal blood 
 which is transmitted to the placenta appears to be 
 exclusively that of renovation or aeration, by coming 
 into relation with the oxygenated blood of the 
 mother;t nothing being said as to re- absorption 
 into the maternal system. J 
 
 Medicine, Dr. Alison expresses himself even more strongly on tbe 
 subject : "The experiments of Magendie and others have proved 
 that any substance which may be circulating in the blood of the 
 mother finds ready access to that of the foetus, but that there is 
 little or no transference of fluids in the opposite direction." Cyc. 
 of Pract. Med., Vol. i. p. Ixxxiii. 
 
 * Handbook of Physiology, p. 643. 
 
 t Carpenter, Principles of Human Physiology, 2nd edit., p. 718. 
 Manual of Physiology, p. 474. 
 
 J It may be asked, whether the idea expressed by the terms 
 "renovation" and "aeration" does not necessarily include that of 
 the transference of some kind of matter from the foetus to the 
 mother ? Supposing "that the umbilical arteries terminate in the 
 umbilical veins, and not in the vessels of the uterus, and that the 
 [whole] blood in the umbilical arteries * passes from the arteries 
 into the veins, as in other parts of the body, and so back again 
 .into the child ' "(Dr. J. Reid, Researches, p. 318) still this blood 
 
48 Essays on the 
 
 Mr. M'Gillivray brings forward this exsanguine 
 foetal calf to depone in opposition to these exclusive 
 views, and by its testimony to prove that of the blood 
 which returns to the placenta a portion is absorbed 
 
 is believed to have acquired something effete in its transit through 
 the foetal system. What becomes of this effete foetal matter ? 
 Clearly there is no outlet for it but through the mother's system, 
 and by her excretory organs. 
 
 Judging from the analogy of the process of aeration in the adult, 
 and from the condition of the foetus, which renders all excretion 
 by its own organs (except of bile into the intestine) impossible, 
 carbonic acid and the elements of urine probably form the chief 
 part of that effete matter. Perhaps some animal matter may at- 
 tach to it such as is thrown off with the watery vapour in the 
 adult, and amounts, according to Collard de Martigny, to about 
 three parts in 1,000 of the vapour. This animal matter, how- 
 ever, may be thought too inconsiderable in amount, or not of a 
 nature to exert any influence on the maternal constitution. But 
 no one, probably, will think so, who reflects on what is now 
 admitted in regard to blood-diseases, and the small influences by 
 which the whole mass of blood may be affected. (See Kirkes' 
 Physiology, pp. 71, 286, 292.) The "materies morbi " of 
 sciofula, of syphilis, and of many chronic diseases, must often 
 exist in the blood in an impalpable form, nay, must even be 
 evolved in the secretions and the plastic exudations. More 
 curious still, even MIND itself, immaterial as it is, must pervade 
 the blood (though its acknowledged seat is the nervous system), 
 and must impart itself to the semen and the microscopic ovum ! 
 "In the most perfect animals (says Miiller),and even in man, we 
 must suppose that the ovum and semen contain within themselves 
 all the conditions necessary for the production of a new being 
 endowed with mind; and, consequently, that one or both of them 
 contain the essence of mind in a latent state." (Physiology, Vol. 
 i., p. 820.) 
 
 Is it more extraordinary, or at all fanciful, to suppose, that a 
 subtile materies foetus may attach to the effete matters which pass 
 into the blood of the mother, and that it may inoculate her 
 system with its own distinctive qualities ? 
 
Foetus in Utero. 49 
 
 by the uterine veins, and re-enters the circulation of 
 the mother. That it furnishes " undeniable " evi- 
 dence of this (as he alleges) is more than can fairly 
 be affirmed, because it is quite conceivable that, 
 without giving back to the mother a single drop of 
 its blood, the foetus may, during the three days, 
 have simply used up the blood within it. Whether 
 this happened it is difficult to say. But it may be 
 questioned whether the vital actions of the foetus 
 would not have failed long before its blood was 
 actually expended to this extent ; and it seems alto- 
 gether much more probable that the nearly complete 
 disappearance of that fluid was owing in part to its 
 being abstracted by the mother. That, under the 
 circumstances in which the mother's system was 
 placed during the continuance of the haemorrhage, a 
 powerfully derivative effect had been produced on 
 the general mass of her blood, withdrawing a large 
 part of it from the several organs (including the 
 maternal portion of the placenta) towards the seat 
 of the haemorrhage, seems very certain from the 
 observations of Haller and Spallanzani ; and that 
 her general function of absorption had been unusu- 
 ally active, the well-known experiments of Magendie 
 sufficiently demonstrate. And we should scarcely 
 conceive, a priori, either that the blood of the foetus 
 had not been brought within the sphere of action of 
 those two influences, and, unless an obstacle inter- 
 posed, been laid under contribution for the support 
 of the mother's system ; or that the double layer of 
 nucleated cells, intervening between the maternal 
 and foetal vessels, and which habitually allows the 
 
 E 
 
50 Essays on the 
 
 passage of fluids from the mother to the foetus, had 
 then offered any impediment to their passage in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 The discrepancy between Mr. M'Grillivray's case 
 and the statements of Magendie and Williams, as to 
 the fulness of the foetal vessels when a pregnant 
 animal dies of haemorrhage, is probably only an 
 ' apparent one. Those statements have reference to 
 cases where the mother dies suddenly from profuse 
 and rapid loss of blood, and where the emptying of 
 the foetal vessels in the only way in which they can 
 be drained, viz., by absorption, is anticipated by 
 death ; while in Mr. M'Gillivray's case the haemor- 
 rhage being comparatively gradual, time was given for 
 the exercise of that process, and circumstances con- 
 curred to render it unusually active. 
 
 In the absence of any experimentum crucis, where- 
 by a positive solution of the question might be had, 
 the anaemic condition of the foetal calf may, I think, 
 with great probability be ascribed, in part, to the 
 expenditure of its blood in the nutritive processes 
 going on within it, and in part, as Mr. M'Gillivray 
 supposes, to the re-absorption at least of its more 
 fluid constituents into the system of the mother. 
 And what seems to have been thus possible, and, 
 under the circumstances, may very fairly be pre- 
 sumed to have actually occurred, and to have taken 
 place pretty rapidly, may reasonably be held to 
 imply, that, at all times, though ordinarily but 
 slowly, there goes on within the gravid uterus a 
 gradual removal by absorption, and reception into 
 the maternal system, of such portions of the foetal 
 blood as are unfitted by reason of impurity for 
 
Foetus in Utero. 5 1 
 
 Jministering to the nourishment of the foetus, and 
 for the renovation of which the placenta may be 
 inadequate. It is not probable, indeed, that the 
 amount returned is very great, and the experiments 
 of Magendie are sufficient to demonstrate that it can 
 be but small. If, however, it take place at all, be 
 the quantity absorbed within a given time never so 
 inconsiderable, it is all that is necessary for the 
 support of Mr. M'Gillivray's theory, the essential 
 principle of which cannot, perhaps, be better ex- 
 pressed than in the words applied to signify the 
 influence of moral causes on human character " a 
 little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." 
 
 Wagner, indeed, expresses a decided opinion that 
 a mutual interchange of fluids takes place in the 
 placenta, " the blood of the mother abstracting matter 
 from that of the foetus, and the blood of the foetus 
 taking in its turn matter from that of the mother."* 
 Miiller, also, is of the same opinion. " In mam- 
 malia, the vascular villi of the foetus are received 
 into the vascular sheaths of the uterine placenta, so 
 that the capillaries of the foetal and those of the 
 maternal system come into contact with each other, 
 and suffer an interchange of the matters which they 
 contain"^ Neither Miiller nor Wagner, however, 
 
 * Elements of Physiology, translated by Willis, p. 202. 
 
 t Elements of Physiology, translated by Baly, Vol. ii. pp. 
 1604-5. Dr. John Reid makes an observation which seems to 
 convey the very same idea: "The blood of the mother contained 
 in the placental sac, and the blood of the foetus centained in the 
 umbilical vessels, can readily act and react upon each other" 
 -Physiological, Anatomical and Pathological Researches, p. 326. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Essays on the 
 
 refer to any facts in support of their opinion as 
 regards the absorbent action of the mother on the 
 foetus. Probably they rest it on analogical grounds. 
 And, indeed, all that seems necessary to give con- 
 firmation to it is proof that poisons introduced into 
 the umbilical arteries, or into the body of the foetus, 
 may pass into and affect the mother. That 
 Magendie's experiments failed to show this is well 
 known ; but, valuable as they may be allowed to be, 
 they do not demonstrate that such absorption may 
 not take place still less, that it is impossible. The 
 only negative inference that can be drawn from them 
 is, that within the time occupied by them, and 
 under the circumstances in which they were per- 
 formed, no obvious absorption occurred. And it is 
 conceivable that they may have been too few in 
 number, or too little varied nay, even too unskil- 
 fully conducted to be of much value, and may 
 demand repetition ; or, that the circumstances 
 under which experiments of this kind must neces- 
 sarily be made are such as to preclude the hope of 
 our ever obtaining satisfactory information through 
 this channel. Yet, even in this event, we may yet 
 obtain the requisite satisfaction. Possibly, nature 
 may herself yet furnish us, in her own way, with 
 the evidence which we cannot extract from her by 
 artificial methods of interrogation. Had we, e.g., 
 undoubted instances of the foetus being tainted with 
 syphilis through the father, and communicating the 
 virus to the mother, we should have all the proof 
 we need desire that matters can and do pass by ab- 
 sorption from the foetus to the mother. Whether 
 
Foetus in Utero. 53 
 
 such evidence shall yet be had remains to be seen ; 
 but it may be observed that Mr. (Sir James) Paget 
 has suggested the criterion by which the value of 
 alleged instances of this kind may be determined. 
 
 ABERDEEN, August IS, 1850. 
 
ESSAY THIRD. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IN UTERO 
 AS INFLUENCED IN ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 MENTAL STATES IN EITHER PARENT, 
 
FROM 
 
 THE EDINBURGH MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 
 
 For November, 1850. 
 
ESSAY THIRD. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IN UTERO, ETC. 
 
 THAT mental causes, or states of mind, operating 
 within the female during pregnancy, or within 
 either parent at the time of coitus, may variously 
 influence the nutrition and development of the 
 foetus, has long been matter of popular belief; and, 
 setting a goodly number of recorded instances to 
 the account of old wives' fables, this belief may be 
 allowed to have a stable foundation in facts.* It is 
 not my intention, however, to enter on the general 
 subject further than as it bears on Mr. M'Grilliv ray's 
 theory, referring merely to such facts as serve to 
 show that mental causes may so influence the 
 growth of the foetus as to produce results analogous 
 to those ascribed to inoculation by a former foetus, 
 
 * Any one curious in cases of this kind may advantageously 
 consult Dr. Allen Thomson's article on " Generation," in the Cyc. 
 of Anat. and Physiology ; and also an article in the Edin. Med. and 
 Surg. Journal, Vol. xxv., p. 134. 
 
58 Essays on the 
 
 and therefore to exhibit a source of fallacy in the 
 reference of these to such inoculation as their 
 cause. 
 
 (1.) Of the cases of this kind now to be noticed 
 some involve changes both in the configuration and 
 the colour of the progeny others, as far as appears, 
 changes in the colour only or chiefly. 
 
 In Daniel's " Rural Sports " the following details 
 are given respecting the setter-bitch and cur- dog 
 formerly referred to : 
 
 " As the late Dr. Hugh Smith was travelling from Midhurst 
 into Hampshire, the dogs, as usual in country places, ran out 
 barking as he was passing through the village, and amongst them 
 he observed a little ugly cur, that was particularly eager to ingra- 
 tiate himself with a setter-bitch that accompanied him. Whilst 
 stopping to water his horse, the doctor remarked how amorous the 
 cur was, and how courteous the setter seemed to her admirer. 
 Provoked to see a creature of Dido's high blood so obsequious to 
 such mean addresses, the doctor drew one of his pistols, and shot 
 the cur. He then had the bitch canied on horseback for several 
 miles. From that day the setter lost her appetite, ate little or 
 nothing, had no inclination to go abroad with her master, or to 
 attend his call ; but seemed to pine like a creature in love, and 
 express sensible concern at the loss of her gallant. Partridge 
 season came, but Dido had no nose. Sometime after she was 
 coupled with a setter of great excellence, which, with no small 
 difficulty, had been procured to have a breed from, and all the 
 caution that even the doctor himself could take was strongly 
 exerted, that the whelps might be pure and unmixed. Yet not a 
 puppy did Dido biing forth but was the exact picture and colour 
 of the cur that had so many months before been destroyed. The 
 doctor fumed, and, had he not personally paid such attention to 
 preserve the intercourse uncontaminated, would have suspected 
 that some negligence had occasioned his disappointment ; but his 
 views were in many subsequent litters also defeated, for Dido 
 
Foetus in Utero. 59 
 
 never produced a whelp which was not exactly similar to the un- 
 fortunate cur who was her first and murdered lover."* 
 
 In Mr. Elaine's " Encyclopaedia of Kural Sports " 
 this other case is given : 
 
 " The late Lord Rivers [says Mr. Elaine] was famed for a breed 
 of black and white spaniels, one of which, having more than the 
 usual quantity of white, he presented to us. We had, at the same 
 time, a pug-bitch of great beauty. The attachment of this bitch 
 to the spaniel was singularly strong. When it became necessary 
 to separate her, on account of her heat, from this dog, and to con- 
 fine her with one of her own kind, she pined excessively ; and, 
 notwithstanding her situation, it was some time before she would 
 admit the attentions of the pug-dog placed with her. At length, 
 however, she was warded by him, impregnation followed, and at 
 the usual period she brought forth five pug-puppies, one of which 
 was perfectly white, and rather more slender than the others, 
 though a genuine pug. The spaniel was soon afterwards given 
 away. At two subsequent litters (which were all she afterwards 
 had) this bitch also brought forth a while pug-pup, which the 
 fanciers know to be a very rare occurrence. It is also a curious 
 fact that each succeeding white puppy was less shnder in form 
 than the preceding, though all were equally white. "t 
 
 The two cases now given have many points in 
 common, and appear to be free from any material 
 source of fallacy. In the former there was not even 
 sexual intercourse much less fruitful intercourse 
 between the bitch and the cur, to whom her progeny 
 bore so decided a resemblance ; and in the latter, if 
 intercourse occurred, which it appears did not, there 
 
 * Daniel's Rural Sports, Vol. iii. pp. 333, 334. A case very 
 similar to the above, occurring in a bitch belonging to him, has 
 been mentioned to me by Mr. Walker, Portlethen, in Kincardine- 
 shire. 
 
 t Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports, by Delabere P. Elaine, Esq., 
 p. 412. 
 
60 Essays on the 
 
 was no result from it. Tn both females there seems 
 to have been a strong and abiding attachment to 
 the cur and spaniel respectively, and an equally keen 
 and enduring emotion of disappointment at being 
 separated from them. The resemblance of the 
 progeny, or of certain of these, to the dogs, appears 
 to have been of too special a kind to admit the sup- 
 position of its being accidental. There need be no 
 question, therefore, but that the cases are fair ex- 
 amples of mental impressions of a permanent 
 character so operating on the female parents as to 
 influence the development of their offspring while 
 in utero, and that in such a manner as to cause them 
 to resemble the male animals that were the objective 
 causes of those impressions. 
 
 Nearly similar remarks apply to the following 
 case, for the particulars of which I am indebted to 
 Dr. John R. Trail, of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire. 
 The chief point of interest in this case lies in the 
 resemblance being at once general, and yet extend- 
 ing to an abnormal peculiarity of conformation, and 
 in its thus forming a connecting link between the 
 two foregoing cases and two others presently to be 
 adduced. It does not appear, indeed, whether the 
 mother manifested any special attachment to the 
 male animal which her offspring resembled, but 
 such attachment may reasonably be presumed : 
 
 A mare and a horse (a gelding), belonging to a friend of Dr. 
 Trail, had for some years worked together on the same farm, occu- 
 pied adjacent stalls in the same stable, and pastured together in 
 summer in the same fields. The gelding was of a black colour, 
 with white legs and face, and had a singular peculiarity in the 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 61 
 
 form of the hind legs, which, when the animal was standing, ap- 
 peared as if quite straight, there being no appearance of the leg 
 being bent at the hough -joint, as in ordinary cases ; the pasterns 
 likewise were very long, so as to cause the feet to look as if placed 
 almost at right angles to the legs. 
 
 Having been some years thus associated with this gelding, the 
 mare was covered by a stallion of the same colour with herself 
 both stallion and mare being of a bay colour, with black legs, and 
 a small spot of white only on the forehead. The foal which was 
 the produce of this connection very exactly resembled the gelding 
 in colour, and in the shape, too, more particularly of the hind 
 legs, as above described. " From the description I have attempted 
 to give you [Dr. Trail writes me], you could not form any very 
 distinct idea of the peculiar conformation of the horse ; but the 
 resemblance of the foal to him was remarkably clear." 
 
 Dr. Montgomery, of Dublin, gives the following 
 interesting case : 
 
 " A lady, pregnant for the first time, to whom I recommended 
 frequent exercise in the open air, declined going out as often as 
 was thought necessary, assigning as her reason, that she was afraid 
 of a man, whose appearance had greatly shocked and disgusted her ; 
 he used to crawl along the flag-way, on his hands and knees, with 
 his feet turned up behind him, which latter were malformed and 
 imperfect, appearing as if they had been cut off at the instep, and 
 he exhibited them thus, and uncovered, in order to excite com- 
 miseration. I afterwards attended this lady in her lying-in ; and 
 her child, which was born a month before its time, and lived but 
 a few minutes, although in every other respect perfect, had the 
 feet malformed and defective, precisely in the same way as those of 
 the cripple who had alarmed her, and whom I had often seen."* 
 
 Nothing can be more appropriate than Dr. Mont- 
 gomery's short commentary on this case : " Here 
 was an obvious and recognized object making a 
 powerful impression, of a disagreeable kind, com- 
 
 * Exposition of the Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy, &c., 
 pp. 16, 17. 
 
62 Essays on the 
 
 plained of at the time, and followed by an effect in 
 perfect accordance with the previous cause, there 
 being between the two a similarity so perfect, that, 
 with Morgagni, I * will not easily suppose that chance 
 could have been so ingenious, if I may be allowed to 
 speak thus, and so exact an imitator.' ' 
 
 A case very similar to the foregoing has been 
 communicated to me by a distinguished English 
 physiologist himself personally cognisant of the 
 facts. It is as follows : 
 
 " A lady, when two or three months pregnant, was accosted by 
 a one-armed beggar, who, on her refusing to relieve him, menaced 
 her violently, so as to alarm her seriously, and shook his stump 
 at her. She was extremely agitated, and during the whole re- 
 mainder of her pregnancy was under the firm expectation that her 
 child would be one-armed which was the case. This child is now- 
 grown up to manhood, and occupies a highly respectable position 
 in society." 
 
 In this case (and the remark applies equally to 
 Dr. Montgomery's) the effect was partial only, and 
 on this account it may be thought not altogether 
 pertinent to the subject under consideration ; but it 
 probably embraced all that was peculiar in the object, 
 as it certainly did all that was striking to the mind 
 of the lady. And had the occasion of the impres- 
 sion been some well-marked but normal peculiarity 
 of the features e.g., of the nose, instead of a 
 deformity of the arm ; and had the man been the 
 object formerly of the lady's love and attachment, 
 and still during her pregnancy of her cherished 
 regard, and had the resemblance in her child ex- 
 tended to the part supposed, the effect, though 
 
Foetus in Utero. 63 
 
 equally partial, might have seemed more general. 
 The case might thus have been set down as a fair 
 example of the power of the imagination, in a preg- 
 nant female, to cause her offspring very exactly to 
 resemble an individual not its father. Of this the 
 following is, perhaps, an instance : 
 
 " A young married woman, residing in Aberdeen, between whom 
 and a young man a strong attachment and a matrimonial engage- 
 ment had long existed, but who were never married, and never had 
 sexual intercourse together, gave birth to a child, which bore so 
 striking a resemblance in its features to the woman's first lover as 
 to attract the notice of herself and many others of the acquaint- 
 ance of the parties." 
 
 In this case communicated to me by Mr. Eobert 
 M. Erskine, surgeon, here, who was well acquainted 
 with the individuals concerned, and had personally 
 satisfied himself of the accuracy of the fact the 
 resemblance may have existed only in the imagina- 
 tion of the observers, or been magnified through the 
 love of the marvellous, and, giving it as given to 
 myself, I adduce it merely as a possible example of 
 what may be a real occurrence, and would contrast 
 remarkably with the observation alluded to by Dr. 
 Allen Thomson, viz., " that the human female, 
 when twice married, bears occasionally to the second 
 husband children resembling the first, both in bodily 
 structure and mental powers," and also with the 
 cases given as instances of this, in the Postscript to 
 Essay First. 
 
 It appears that many breeders of stock are im- 
 pressed with the belief, that certain colours present 
 
64 Essays on the 
 
 to the eye of the parent animals, and particularly 
 of the female, at the time and in the act of their 
 being coupled together, and to the eye of the female 
 both before and during her pregnancy, influence the 
 colour of the progeny ; and that they make this 
 belief a practical principle of action in the breeding 
 of their stock, in order either to prevent or to secure 
 the admixture of any particular colour in the off- 
 spring different from that of the parent animals. 
 " We know," says an anonymous writer, " a great 
 breeder of pure Angus stock [black polled breed], 
 who makes it a rule to have every animal about his 
 farm of a black colour, down to the very poultry."* 
 And an eminent breeder of the same stock in this 
 county informs me that he extends this rule to the 
 steadings in which his cattle are kept. 
 
 To illustrate generally the grounds of this belief 
 and practice the following cases may be cited : 
 
 (a) A black polled [Angus] cow, belonging to Mr. Mustard, a 
 farmer in Forfarshire, came into season while pasturing in a field 
 bounded by that of a neighbouring farmer. Out of this last there 
 jumped into the other field an ox, of a white colour, with black 
 spots, and horned, which went with the cow till she was brought 
 to the bull, an animal of the same colour and breed as herself. 
 Mr. Mustard had not a horned animal in his possession, nor any 
 with the least white on it : and yet the produce of this (black and 
 polled) cow and bull was a black -and-white calf, with horns. t 
 
 (5) Last year (1849) twenty cows of the black polled Angus 
 breed, belonging to Mr. William M'Combie, in this county, and 
 
 * North of Scotland Gazette newspaper for July 17, 1849. 
 
 + Library of Society of Useful Knowledge, volume on Cattle, 
 p. 171. This seems to be the same case as that given by Dr. 
 Allen Thomson, in Cyc. Anat. and Phys., art. "Generation," 
 Vol. ii. p. 474. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 65 
 
 whose stock is perhaps the finest in the kingdom, produced as 
 many calves, all of them black and polled, except one single calf, 
 which was yellow-and-white spotted. Mr. McGombie had, as 
 usual with him, taken the precaution of causing the cows, both 
 before and during their pregnancy, to mix with none save per- 
 fectly black cattle, except in respect of the mother of this calf. 
 This cow had unwittingly been put to an out-farm, to be starved, 
 in order to fit her for the bull. There, for a considerable period 
 prior to her being served with the bull, she had grazed with a large 
 yellow-and-white spotted ox : of this ox the calf she subsequently 
 bore was the very picture, the likeness, however, extending no 
 farther than to the colour, and the calf still retaining the shape and 
 configuration of its parents, which were both of the same breed 
 and colour. 
 
 (c) Out of a large herd of cows, of the pure Teeswater breed, 
 all of them of the brown or roan colour (belonging to Mr. 
 Cruickshank, Sittyton, near Aberdeen), there is every year dropt 
 one, or at most two, white calves : these, in order to prevent the 
 introduction of this colour among the cattle, are invariably sold, 
 and sent away. Last year, however, concurrently with the white- 
 washing of all the farm-steadings, the very large number of twelve 
 white calves were produced. And the like occurrence happened 
 last year also, in the herd of an extensive breeder of the same kind 
 of stock, in Yorkshire, in connection with the like process of white- 
 washing, this process having, in both cases, been very extensively 
 carried out before the breeding season began, with the view of pre- 
 venting the breaking out of the pleuro-pneumonia, then epidemic 
 in the neighbourhood, and very destructive.* 
 
 (d) " At the time when a stallion was about to cover a mare, 
 the stallion's pale colour was objected to, whereupon the groom, / 
 knowing the effect of colour upon horses' imaginations, presented 
 before the stallion a mare, of a pleasing colour, which had thief 
 desired effect of determining a dark colour in the offspring. 
 This is said to have been repeated with success in the same horse 
 more than once. " f / 
 
 * Communicated by Mr. Cruicksbank, who informs me farther, 
 that he has had too many proofs of the agency of the ciiuse in 
 question to allow him entertaining any doubt on the subject. 
 
 t Art. " Generation," in Cjc. Anat. and Phys., vol. ii./ p. 474. 
 
66 Essays on the 
 
 (e) " I was told (Mr. McCombie writes me) by an old servant 
 of mine, Morrice Smith, that, when he was a servant in the parish 
 of Glass (Aberdeenshire), a black bull served a black cow at the 
 time when a white mare passed them, and that the produce was 
 twin white calves. There were no white cattle upon the farm 
 where this occurrence happened.' '* 
 
 Such cases as several of those now cited can 
 scarcely fail to recall to the reader's mind the story 
 given in the book of Genesis (chap, xxx.), of Jacob 
 and his peeled rods, and the effect of these in causing 
 the flocks, before whom they were placed at the time 
 of conception, to bring forth ring-straked, speckled, 
 and spotted cattle. 
 
 It does not appear from the sacred narrative 
 whether the influence of the rods was exerted on 
 the minds both of the male and female cattle, or 
 confined to those of the female. But it seems prob- 
 able (Gen. xxxi. 5-12) that the effect was a super- 
 natural one, and designed to enrich the needy patri- 
 arch at the expense of the crafty Laban, by whom, 
 for fourteen years, he had been sore let and hindered 
 " in providing for his own house ;" and that Jacob 
 
 * My friend Dr. J. M. Duncan writes me, that he has " more 
 \ than once heard farm- servants say, that it is a sure plan to get a 
 \ white foal, to hang up a pure white sheet before the mare when 
 she conceives." Probably hanging up such a sheet in the stable 
 dying the whole period of pregnancy would be equally effectual. 
 And another correspondent (J. Warwick, Esq., Sussex House, 
 Hammersmith) says : *' The belief in the effect of external objects 
 on the imagination of pregnant women is so strong in Italy, that 
 females in that condition keep in their rooms, and before their eyes, 
 small wax figures of a pretty child. This is called 'II Bambino,' 
 represents the infant Jesus, and is especially worshipped and 
 adored, with the view of procuring beautiful offspring." 
 
Foetus in Utero. 67 
 
 had beforehand, in a dream, intimation given him 
 of the design, as well as a sensible representation 
 both of the agency to be employed and of the result 
 which was to follow.* If this were the character of 
 the transaction, it would be unwarrantable to draw 
 any inference from it in relation to the present 
 inquiry, unless it could be shown, which I apprehend 
 it cannot, that the same expedient will now, as then, 
 produce the like results. At the same time it may, 
 perhaps, be not unfairly referred to, in illustration 
 of ordinary phenomena of a somewhat analogous 
 kind. Read by the light of these, it may be held to 
 indicate that the Almighty accomplished His pur- 
 pose simply by enhancing a natural agency " mould- 
 ing it secretly in the hollow of His hand," and so 
 
 * Dr. Allen Thomson, in his comment on this transaction (Cyc. 
 Anat. and Phys., art. '* Generation "), seems to me to have very 
 completely missed the import of the essential parts of the narrative. 
 He gathers from it, that Jacob had parti-coloured males to breed 
 with, and makes the result an affair of mere hereditary trans- 
 mission. But Jacob had not this advantage, and it seems 
 clearly to have been part of his own proposal to Laban that he 
 should not. Laban, at least, on the bargain being concluded, 
 very carefully singled out all the animals of that sort males as 
 well as females even " to every one that had some white on it, 
 and all the brown amoDg the sheep ; " and, giving them into the 
 hand of his sons, set three days' journey betwixt this parti- 
 coloured flock and that which was to be tended by Jacob. A diffi- 
 culty, it may be added, attaches to the right understanding of the 
 whole matter, from the obscurity of v. 40 (chap, xxx.) the true 
 meaning, if not the proper rendering, of which appears to be 
 this : " And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set aside from 
 the flock all the ring-straked and all the brown in the flock of 
 Laban ; and set them apart for a flock to himself, and put them 
 not unto Laban's cattle." 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Essays on the 
 
 be regarded as reflecting back light in its turn upon 
 that agency. The validity, however, of this appeal 
 must turn upon our being able to satisfy ourselves, 
 on independent grounds, that there is in nature an 
 agency of this kind ; while the precise value of the 
 appeal will hinge on the extent to which we can 
 thus ascertain that it ordinarily operates, ques- 
 tions these for the solution of which we have not 
 at present the requisite data. 
 
 (2.) All that need be said in the way of direct 
 inference from the facts brought together in this 
 division of the subject, may be comprised within a 
 narrow compass. 
 
 Supposing the statements respecting them to be 
 authentic and no question, I apprehend, as to this 
 can well be raised the cases are nearly unequivocal. 
 The only fallacy that can attach to them, is that 
 arising from the possibility, that the peculiarities in 
 the progeny were either purely accidental, or owing 
 to corresponding qualities latent in the parents, but 
 breaking out in the offspring. The relation, how- 
 ever, in most of the cases between the peculiarities 
 in question and their presumed causes, is too close 
 and of too special a character to admit of either sup. 
 position. We are, therefore, well entitled, I think, 
 to regard the greater number, if not the whole of 
 them, as examples of mental causes so operating either 
 on the mind of the female, and so acting on her re- 
 productive powers, or on the mind of the male parent 
 and so influencing the qualities of his semen, as to 
 modify the nutrition and development of the offspring. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 69 
 
 How, in respect of the female, this influence is 
 exerted, what its modus operands, and what the 
 conditions of its agency, it is not easy to determine 
 The mental affections seem to have been in most of 
 the cases, and were probably in all of them, of a 
 strong and enduring kind ; and we can easily conceive 
 this to have been essential to the result. That the 
 alteration in the growth of the foetus was determined 
 solely, as is vulgarly supposed, by the images in the 
 mind of the mother, i.e., by the mere sensations and 
 perceptions therein produced, independently of the 
 emotions excited by them, cannot well be supposed. 
 It is, doubtless, to this " compound state " of mind 
 to use an expression, without adopting, however, the 
 psychological theory, of Sir James Mackintosh 
 " easily called to mind," inconsequence of the vivid- 
 ness of its first impression, " frequently recurring," 
 and " warmly felt,"* that we must ascribe the effect. 
 
 It is not unlikely that this particular agency of 
 the mind is more frequently exerted in the females 
 of the lower animals than in those of our own species ; 
 and that cases exemplifying it are oftener met with 
 in the brute than in man. If this be so, a reason- 
 able explanation of the fact may be given. We 
 know that the minds of the lower animals are in a 
 great measure limited to particulars, and these few 
 in number, and almost exclusively external objects 
 of sense ; that the external senses are more perfect 
 in them than in us ; and that the perceptions result- 
 
 * Ethical Philosophy, edited by Whewell, 2nd edition, pp. 
 397, 398. 
 
70 Essays on the 
 
 ing from their exercise seem, in various instances, 
 to follow more surely and more quickly to be 
 more intuitive and wider in their scope, and more 
 vivid in them than in man ; and that the simpler 
 emotions (excited by those perceptions) of joy, fear, 
 affection, anger, &c., of which they are manifestly 
 susceptible, seem often to be peculiarly strong.* 
 We know also that they possess the faculty of 
 memory ; and we may well suppose, from their 
 limited range of association (or suggestion), that 
 sensations that formerly made a powerful impres- 
 sion on their minds, will be more easily and oftener 
 recalled in them than in us, who, though more apt 
 to be "troubled about many things," are proportion- 
 ally less apt to be affected, or at least permanently 
 or continuously impressed, by any one thing. These 
 circumstances and peculiarities of mental action 
 must obviously be singularly favourable to the pro- 
 duction of the results in question, keeping in mind, 
 that the mental agency under consideration is mani- 
 festly closely connected with sensations and with 
 simple perceptions and emotions thence resulting, and 
 with a certain intensity and endurance of all these. 
 
 That the parts of the female system specially 
 affected by this " compound state " of mind are the 
 blood and nutritive processes generally seems very 
 probable ; that the kind of change, however, therein 
 produced, is rather dynamical than organic, has 
 been suggested to me by Dr. Carpenter ; that it may 
 be of identically the same nature with the change 
 
 * See art. "Instinct," in Cyc. of Anat. and Phys. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 71 
 
 produced by the inoculation principle is quite 
 possible, the two, however different in their origin, 
 thus running up into, and meeting in, one common 
 principle, to wit, a modification of the constitu- 
 tional or dynamical powers of the female ; and that 
 it may be more or less persistent, and operate on a 
 subsequent conception, independently of a renewal 
 of the mental state itself, some of the cases seem to 
 indicate. That the change in question is produced 
 through the medium of the nervous system, we 
 cannot doubt " that being the acknowledged seat 
 and instrument of mental acts ; " and that the parts 
 of the nervous system more immediately concerned, 
 in addition to certain great nervous centres (the 
 sensory and emotional ganglia*), are the ganglionic 
 nerves, may reasonably be conjectured these nerves 
 being the only channels by which the blood and the 
 nutritive processes can be brought into relation with 
 the mind.t 
 
 Beyond this we cannot venture to go in the way 
 of speculation. The singular influence thus exerted 
 by the mind of the mother on the growth of the 
 foetus, is not one " for which," as has been remarked 
 of other modes of action of the mind on the body, 
 " it is likely that we shall ever be able to assign a 
 reason, or which it would be any great hardship to 
 
 * See Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, p. 522, et seq. ; and 
 Todd and Bowman's Physiological Anatomy, &c., vol. i., chap. xi. 
 
 t Alison Outlines of Physiology, 3rd. edition, pp. 402-4 ; and 
 Physiological Inferences from the Study of the Nerves of the 
 Eye-ball, in " Medical Gazette," No. 705 (June 1841) p. 410, 
 et seq. 
 
7 2 Essays on the 
 
 be obliged to regard as an ultimate fact in physi- 
 ology."* 
 
 (3.) Reverting now to the theory of inoculation, 
 and to the cases cited as instances of it, it will be 
 obvious, from the facts brought together under the 
 preceding head, that in any ordinary case where an 
 animal resembles a male, not its progenitor, by 
 which its mother had on a former occasion been 
 impregnated, the resemblance may be explained as 
 well on the principle of mental agency as on that of 
 inoculation ; or, at least, that in ascribing it to this 
 latter cause a manifest source of fallacy attaches to 
 the assumption. 
 
 To obviate this, and to determine conclusively 
 whether or not the phenomenon is independent of 
 mental agency, all that seems necessary is, to insti- 
 tute experiments in breeding on a sufficiently large 
 number of different kinds of animals, selecting ani- 
 mals of acknowledged purity of blood, and conduct- 
 ing the experiments so as to exclude (which I under- 
 stand could easily be done) the agency of any such 
 mental impressions on the minds of the animals con- 
 cerned as could reasonably be supposed to influence 
 the results. Should these be of an affirmative kind, 
 and be, at the same time, sufficiently numerous and 
 decided, it would follow conclusively that the phe- 
 nomenon is not due to mental causes. In connection, 
 however, with this set of experiments, it would be 
 desirable to institute another set in which every 
 
 * Alison On the Physiological Principle of Sympathy, 
 Transactions of Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society, vol. ii., 
 pp. 223, 224. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 73 
 
 advantage should be given to the agency of mental 
 causes. Should the results from these be equally 
 affirmative although this circumstance would not 
 vitiate the inference fairly deducible from those of 
 the other set, unless by exhibiting in these any 
 source of fallacy otherwise perhaps imperceptible 
 they would afford points of comparison and contrast, 
 and thereby enable us the better to appreciate the 
 value of that inference ; while, if they should be 
 wholly or in a great measure negative, it is clear 
 that they would add greatly to the conclusiveness of 
 the inference in question. 
 
 The following is a detailed outline of the most im- 
 portant of these 
 
 EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 First Set. To determine how far the circumstance 
 of a previous impregnation by a male of a different 
 species, breed, or colour, from the female the 
 agency of mental causes on the result being excluded 
 influences the conformation or colour of the off- 
 spring subsequently borne by her, to a male of the 
 same breed and colour as her own : 
 
 The female to be served the first season by a male of a different 
 species, breed, or colour from her own ; and the following season, 
 by a male of the same breed and colour as herself, taking these 
 precautions against the agency of mental causes, first, and generally, 
 that the female shall not at any time, up to the period of her 
 second accouchement, have seen the former of those two males, nor 
 any animal of that species, breed, or colour ; and, secondly, and 
 particularly, that the coitus between her and that male shall be so 
 managed as to prevent her from seeing him ; that, subsequently, 
 during this her first pregnancy, the female shall be kept exclusively 
 with animals of her own breed and colour ; and that, immediately 
 
74 Essays on the 
 
 on her delivery, the (cross) animal produced be taken from her, 
 and ever after kept out of her sight. 
 
 Second Set. To determine how far mental causes, 
 operating through the external senses, influence the 
 colour and conformation of offspring : 
 
 I. Mental causes operating at the time of coitus 
 only, or at least originating then 
 
 The male and the female, both of the same breed and colour, in 
 being coupled together, to have fully in their view animals of a 
 different species, breed, or colour, or objects of any kind of a dif- 
 ferent colour, regard being had, in respect of the matter of colour, 
 that this present a marked contrast to that of the animals con- 
 cerned, and, particularly, that it be of a bright or striking hue. 
 
 To prevent, as far as possible, any influence of this kind from 
 operating on the mind of the female during her pregnancy, the 
 female be made to herd exclusively, till after her delivery, with 
 animals of the same breed and colour with herself. 
 
 II. Mental causes operating on the mind of the 
 female during pregnancy only 
 
 The male and the female, both of the same breed and colour 
 as before, to be coupled together in the usual manner (or in the 
 presence of animals of the same sort only) ; but the female, during 
 her pregnancy, to herd exclusively with animals of a different specie?, 
 breed, or colour. 
 
 III. Mental causes operating both at the time of 
 coitus, and subsequently during the pregnancy of 
 the female 
 
 The male and the female, in being coupled together, to have 
 fully in their eye animals of a different species, breed, or colour ; 
 and the female, during her pregnancy, to herd exclusively with 
 animals of this sort. 
 
 The details now given embrace the principles on 
 which, as it seems to me, decisive experiments might 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 75 
 
 be made, and also the precautions necessary to be 
 attended to, in order, as far as possible, to avoid fal- 
 lacy in the results obtained from them. They might 
 be very variously modified, and ought certainly to 
 be tried on many different species of animals, in 
 order to give at once a breadth and precision to the 
 results. 
 
 Should it be clearly established by such experi- 
 ments that an animal, the produce of a male and 
 female of the same breed, born subsequently to the 
 impregnation of the female at a former period by a 
 male of a different breed or species from her own, has, 
 from the single circumstance of such previous impreg- 
 nation of its mother, its nutrition and development 
 so far changed as to resemble that male animal, not 
 its progenitor, the experiments would farther supply 
 materials towards determining the extent to which 
 the fact holds, and the conditions essential to its 
 occurrence. And, in particular, they would furnish 
 more or less satisfactory answers to the following 
 questions, themselves suggestive, both of modifi- 
 cations in the experiments, and of the points to be 
 attended to in noting the results 
 
 1. Does the fact hold universally, or only pretty often, or only 
 occasionally and rarely ? 
 
 2. Does the animal so produced partake decidedly or only par- 
 tially of the characters of the male animal which it resembles, 
 in colour merely, or in conformation also ? 
 
 3. Does the degree of resemblance depend on the number of 
 times the mother may have conceived by that male, before bearing 
 the animal in question ? 
 
 4. Is the resemblance lessened or in any way affected by the 
 
76 Essays on the Foetus in Utero. 
 
 female having been first impregnated by a male of her own breed 
 and colour, prior to her having borne offspring by that other 
 male ? 
 
 5. Does the resemblance to that male become less and less in 
 each animal successively produced, and does it ultimately become 
 imperceptible ? 
 
 Whether such experiments as are here suggested 
 would, if instituted, establish as a principle in the 
 physiology of generation, that, independently of 
 mental agency, a male animal, that has once had 
 fruitful intercourse with a female, may influence 
 the products of subsequent conceptions of that female 
 in which he himself is not concerned, it were need- 
 less at present to speculate. But the cases given in 
 this and in Essays First and Second, as instances of 
 it, taken along with the belief of the frequent 
 occurrence of such cases, and the acknowledged 
 importance of maintaining the purity of breed of 
 most kinds of our domestic animals, may well engage 
 the attention of the agricultural body, and lead them 
 to investigate the subject. How much the Royal 
 Agricultural Societies of England and of Ireland, 
 and the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scot- 
 land, have it in their power to promote such an 
 investigation ; and how much the prosecution of it 
 would be in keeping with the ends of their institu- 
 tion, it is unnecessary to say. 
 
 ABERDEEN, September 10, 1850. 
 
ESSAY FOUKTH. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IN UTERO AS THE CHANNEL OF TRANS- 
 MISSION OF CONSTITUTIONAL SYPHILIS FROM THE 
 MALE TO THE FEMALE PARENT. 
 
FROM 
 
 THE GLASGOW MEDICAL JOURNAL, 
 
 For January, 1859. 
 
 READ BEFORE 
 
 THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OP SOUTHAMPTON, 
 
 December 2, 1856. 
 
ESSAY FOURTH. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IN UTERO, ETC. 
 
 IT is now several years since, first in a series of 
 papers in the Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical 
 Science, and afterwards in a separate pamphlet, 
 dedicated to the Highland and Agricnltnral Society 
 of Scotland, I directed attention to a class of facts 
 which seem to indicate that the foetus in utero may, 
 and in fact habitually does, inocnlatethe female with 
 the constitutional qualities of the male parent. I 
 did not myself suggest the theory of inoculation. 
 It had been advanced a short time before, in the 
 columns of a provincial newspaper, by Mr. James 
 M'Gillivray, a veterinary surgeon in Aberdeenshire. 
 But I may claim the merit of introducing it to the 
 notice of the profession, and giving currency to it 
 among the agricultural body ; as well as of impart- 
 ing to it a more scientific form, and placing it 
 on a broader basis, than had been done by Mr. 
 M'Gillivray. 
 
 In both the first and the second of the series of 
 papers referred to, I pointed out the application of 
 
8o Essays on the 
 
 this principle to the question Whether secondary 
 syphilis may not thus be transmitted from the male 
 to the female ; and it is to this question that I now 
 wish specially to call your attention, premising that 
 my own has recently been recalled to it by two 
 communications on the same subject, published 
 almost simultaneously, but quite independently of 
 each other, both supporting the same views, and 
 both pointing to that principle of inoculation. One 
 of these is in the Edinburgh Medical Journal for 
 October last (1856), by Dr. James B. Balfour, of 
 Edinburgh ; the other is a " Report " of illustrative 
 cases, in the Medical Times and Gazette for October 
 llth, prepared by Mr. Hutchinson, of the Metro- 
 politan Free Hospital,* and to which is appended a 
 summary of the principal conclusions arrived at ; 
 the report itself forming the groundwork of a paper 
 which was read by him a little while ago to the 
 Hunterian Society of London, and will shortly 
 appear as an original communication in the pages 
 of that periodical.t And my object is to bring 
 together, as far as known to me, the facts that 
 have been ascertained regarding it by these and 
 other writers ; and, by presenting those facts under 
 one connected view, to aid in the further investiga- 
 tion of a subject which is as interesting in its physio- 
 logical, as it is important in its pathological and 
 practical relations. 
 
 * Now Emeritus Professor of Surgery to the London Hospital 
 (1886). 
 
 ) Since published therein December 20, 1856, and January 
 10, 1857. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 81 
 
 But (reculer pour mieux sauter) it will be expedi- 
 ent, before entering upon it, to lay before you a 
 brief outline of the general doctrine of maternal 
 inoculation through the foetus, as derived from 
 other facts, and resting on other grounds. Such an 
 outline will, I hope, enable you the better to see 
 clearly the bearings of our proper subject, and to 
 appreciate its importance, not merely as a practical 
 question, but as supplying a test or criterion of 
 great delicacy, and of corresponding value, in 
 regard to the whole general doctrine itself. 
 
 I. The general fact on which this theory of inocu- 
 lation is founded is, that the peculiarities of a male 
 animal that has once had fruitful intercourse with a 
 female of the class mammalia, may be more or less 
 clearly discernible in the progeny which that female 
 may subsequently have by other males ; or, in other 
 words, that a male animal that has once had such 
 intercourse with a mammalian female may so influ- 
 ence her future offspring begotten by other males, 
 as, to a greater or less extent, to engraft upon them 
 his own distinctive features and his own constitu- 
 tional qualities ; his influence thus reaching to the 
 subsequent progeny, in whose conception he himself 
 has had no share, and his image and superscription, 
 so to speak, being more or less legibly inscribed 
 upon them. Accordingly, if the female be of a 
 different breed or species from that male, and have 
 thus borne a cross or hybrid by him, her future 
 offspring, got by males of the same breed and species 
 with herself, may yet have more or less the characters 
 of a cross or hybrid. And if it be true, as is main- 
 
 a 
 
82 Essays on the 
 
 tained by Mr. Orton, of Sunderland, that, in the re- 
 production of the animal species, the male parent 
 imparts mainly to his offspring the parts and 
 qualities that are characteristic both of the animal 
 in general, and of the species to which he belongs, 
 as well as of himself individually to wit, the 
 external structures or the organs of animal life 
 the brain, nerves, organs of sense, the skin and hair, 
 together with the bones and muscles and for the 
 most part, therefore, determines the outward 
 character and general appearance of the offspring 
 it is precisely certain of those parts and characters 
 which may be expected to appear, and which are, in 
 fact, discernible in the subsequent offspring which 
 the female bears to other males.* 
 
 1. It was not till the publication in the Philoso- 
 phical Transactions for the year 1821 (pp. 20, 23), of 
 the cases of Lord Morton's mare, and of Mr. Giles' sow 
 that the subject attracted any particular attention. 
 (See Essay First ; pp. 3, 4). These two cases were 
 long looked upon as solitary examples of an excep- 
 tional phenomenon, and the phenomenon itself was 
 long regarded as scarcely, if at all, admitting of a 
 plausible explanation. By some, however, it was 
 suggested that it might be ascribed to a partial 
 
 * See two papers by Mr. Orton, on " The Physiology of Breed- 
 ing," in the Newcastle Chronicle for March 10, 1854, and 
 November 10, 1854; and a paper by the author, "On the 
 Relative Influence of the Male and Female Parents in the Repro- 
 duction of the Animal Species ;" in the Edinburgh Monthly 
 Journal for August, 1854. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 83 
 
 fecundation by the qnagga and chestnut boar, 
 respectively, of others of the mare's and sow's ova 
 than those actually impregnated by them ; or at 
 least to some influence of their seminal fluid on the 
 ova that remained, of a permanent kind, but 
 strictly local in its agency, and modifying in some 
 way the development of these ova, when afterwards 
 impregnated by other males. By others, again, the 
 phenomenon was regarded as an instance of that 
 class which come within the category of " mother's 
 marks," and are popularly ascribed to the agency 
 of the imagination or of the mind on the body, 
 and supposed to be illustrated by a reference to the 
 case recorded in Genesis (chap, xxx.), of Jacob and 
 his peeled rods. Neither the phenomenon itself, 
 however, nor these conjectures regarding it, gave 
 rise to much discussion, or long continued to 
 engage the attention of physiologists. The subject 
 was altogether passed over by Dr. Bostock, in his 
 elaborate System of Physiology. It was referred 
 to by Mr. Mayo and by Dr. Alison, in their " Out- 
 lines," and by Dr. Kirkes, in his " Handbook," of 
 Physiology. But a brief and passing allusion to it 
 was all the notice it received. 
 
 Meanwhile, instances of a like kind were becom- 
 ing known to persons engaged in the breeding of 
 horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, and swine ; and in 1849 
 Mr. M'Gillivray adduced, in the paper I have 
 referred to, a collection of cases sufficiently large 
 to show that the phenomenon exemplified in Lord 
 Morton's mare, or rather in her progeny, is by no 
 means so unique as it was thought to be. And it 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Essays on the 
 
 may now be confidently affirmed, that since then, 
 and within these few years, enough has transpired 
 in this department of inquiry to warrant the pre- 
 sumption, that the phenomenon in question is so 
 uniform in its occurrence, whenever the requisite 
 conditions obtain, as to constitute a general fact or 
 law of nature. It is so regarded by a large number 
 of our great breeders of cattle, by dog-fanciers, and 
 others of large experience in the rearing of horses, 
 sheep, &c., and is habitually taken into account by 
 them in the selection of their breeding-stock, and 
 in their estimate of the purity of an animal's blood ; 
 the practical belief of all of them on this subject 
 being, that a female animal that has once been im- 
 pregnated by a male of a different breed or species 
 from her own, and has borne a cross or a hybrid by 
 him, is thereby destroyed, for a time at least, if not 
 permanently, for the purposes of breeding pure stock 
 of her own kind ; and the theoretical belief of many 
 among them, that this result happens because (as 
 was first suggested by Mr. M'Gillivray) the blood of 
 the female has, through the foetus, been contamin- 
 ated by the blood, and charged with the qualities of 
 the male she first had intercourse with so charged 
 therewith (so contaminated thereby), that she her- 
 self imparts the blood and the qualities of this 
 male to the progeny she afterwards has by other 
 males. 
 
 2. It is not my intention to lay before you any 
 additional examples of this kind as occurring in the 
 lower animals. I have elsewhere brought together 
 a tolerably large collection, and to this it must 
 
Foetus in Utero. 85 
 
 suffice to refer. But I cannot forbear just briefly 
 alluding to the fact, for the mention of which you 
 will be quite prepared, and the reference to which 
 will naturally pave the way to our proper subject 
 that instances of the like sort are, perhaps, equally 
 common in our own species. It has long been known 
 and it is, in fact, a popular observation that in 
 the case of a woman twice married, and fruitful by 
 both husbands, the children of the second marriage 
 often resemble their mother's first husband or his 
 family, and that not in features only, but in mind 
 also, and in disposition. It is obvious, indeed, that 
 in any such case, where all the individuals concerned 
 the woman, her children, and both the husbands 
 are of the same variety of the human family, the 
 alleged resemblance must often be exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to trace or to substantiate. But it is equally 
 obvious, that means exist for ascertaining clearly 
 whether it obtains or not. There are equally dis- 
 tinct varieties of the human species as there are of 
 any of the lower animals ; and all that is requisite 
 for bringing the question to a decisive issue is, to 
 observe accurately whether the children of European 
 parents when the mother has, in the first instance, 
 had offspring by a negro exhibit traces of the 
 latter in the colour of the skin, and still more in the 
 quality of the hair, the form of the features, &c. ; 
 or, contrariwise, whether the children of negro 
 parents, when the mother has formerly been im- 
 pregnated by a European, manifest the peculiari- 
 ties of the latter. 
 
 Of the former case, I have heard of two instances 
 
86 Essays on the 
 
 as occurring in this country, one of them under the 
 notice of Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh (See 
 Postscript to Essay First, p. 21). Of the latter case, 
 that in which the parents are both negroes, but in 
 which the mother has previously had fruitful con- 
 nection with a European, Dr. Robert Balfour, of 
 Surinam, wrote me some years ago to say, that re- 
 peated instances of the European influence under 
 such circumstances, had come under his own obser- 
 vation. " Among the coloured population " (Dr. 
 Balfour wrote me, April 19, 1851), " consisting of 
 negroes and their offspring by Europeans, the most 
 striking illustrations of the truth of your, or Mr. 
 M'Glllivray's, theory are constantly occurring. 
 Shortly after my settlement here, I was led to re- 
 mark the circumstance (which I had never noticed 
 recorded by writers), that if a negress had a child or 
 children by a white, and afterwards fruitful inter- 
 course with a negro, the latter offspring had gene- 
 rally a lighter colour than the parents. ... I could 
 particularize many such, the observation of which 
 had led me to form an opinion similar to that 
 which you have more elaborately worked out." 
 Doubtless, if looked for, examples of the influence 
 now in question would be found as general in our 
 own species as in the lower animals. And it may 
 just be observed that, in the one as in the other, 
 they can only be unequivocally and satisfactorily 
 determined in cases where the individuals or the 
 animals that are the subjects of observation are of a 
 different race or species ; or rather, where the male, 
 the female, and the offspring, are of the same breed 
 
Foetus in Utero. 87 
 
 and species, but the female has first of all been 
 impregnated by a male of a different breed or 
 species. 
 
 3. In ascribing this very remarkable phenomenon, 
 as seen both in our own species and in the lower 
 animals of the class Mammalia, to an agency exerted 
 by the foetus on the mother's system, of the nature 
 of inoculation, I do not intend to consider in detail, 
 or in connection with other explanations that have 
 been given of it, the grounds on which that doctrine 
 of inoculation rests. The questions involved in it 
 are too numerous, and the discussion of them would 
 be too tedious, to admit of my entering upon them 
 at present. I have elsewhere considered them 
 pretty fully, and must here content myself with 
 this general remark, that the facts there advanced 
 in support of the theory of inoculation have always 
 seemed to me sufficient, if not indeed absolutely to 
 prove the truth of it, to impart to it at least a prob- 
 ability short only of absolute certainty : and, further, 
 that while I deemed it expedient to suggest to the 
 agricultural body certain experiments in breeding, 
 which, if carefully made, could not fail to be 
 decisive of it, I have always thought that a suffi- 
 ciently large collection of facts, of the description of 
 those now to be laid before you in regard to the 
 poison of syphilis, would supply all that is really 
 wanting to make the demonstration of its truth 
 complete. The reasonableness of the doctrine no 
 one can well dispute. Connected as the foetus and 
 its mother are by the placenta, a mutual interchange 
 of fluid matters is continually going on between 
 
88 Essays on the 
 
 them : the foetus drawing supplies from its mother's 
 blood for its growth and maintenance, and the 
 mother (though, no doubt, in much less quantity) 
 abstracting materials from the blood of the foetus. 
 Is it unreasonable to suppose that the matters 
 abstracted by the mother may be charged with (or 
 have inherent in them) the constitutional qualities 
 of the foetus ; or that passing into her body, and 
 mingling there with the general mass of her blood, 
 they may impart those qualities to her system ? 
 And this supposition will perhaps appear the less 
 improbable, if regard be had to the length of time 
 during which the connection between the mother 
 and the foetus is kept up, and during which this 
 transference of materials must go on a period of 
 some weeks, or even of several months. But the 
 qualities inherent in the foetus must in part be 
 derived by it from its male parent, and be to that 
 extent identical with his. The distinctive pecu- 
 liarities, therefore, of this parent may thus come to 
 be engrafted on the mother, or to attach in some 
 way to her system ; and if so, what more likely 
 than that they should be communicated by her to 
 any offspring she may afterwards have by other 
 males ? 
 
 4. Hitherto we have had under consideration the 
 transmission of such qualities only as are strictly 
 normal or healthy, and so far the subject may be 
 regarded as one of physiological interest merely, or 
 at least of practical importance to breeders alone. 
 But it is conceivable that morbid qualities may be 
 transmitted also, and be in the same way, or 
 
Foetus in Utero. 89 
 
 tlirougli the same channel, engrafted on the 
 mother's system. In our own species, scrofula 
 may, peradventure, be thus transmitted. In my 
 First Essay on this subject, I not only refer to the 
 possibility of this, but give two instances in which 
 it apparently happened (pp. 10, 21). A serious 
 difficulty, indeed, attaches to the investigation of 
 this point. So widely diffused is the scrofulous 
 diathesis among mankind, that in any single case in 
 which it has apparently been acquired in this way, 
 it would be difficult to determine whether it was 
 really thus derived or not. Still, observations on 
 the large scale, long and carefully conducted, as to 
 the health and constitutional tendencies of females 
 before and after marriage, as compared with those 
 of their husbands and children, and carefully distin- 
 guishing between females that have and females 
 that have not had children, might in the end, and 
 after full allowance for errors or fallacies of obser- 
 vation, sufficiently demonstrate the reality of the 
 occurrence. Certainly it is not an uncommon obser- 
 vation, that women born of healthy parents, and 
 themselves previously healthy, fall into a state of 
 general ill-health after becoming mothers* an 
 observation which may yet be connected, in a 
 certain proportion of cases, with the principle 
 now in question. So, likewise, may the syphilitic 
 poison, in its constitutional forms, be transmitted 
 
 * Even this observation has not escaped Mr. Kingsley. Speak- 
 ing of Mrs. Vavasour, he says " And when children, and the 
 weak health (on the part of the mother) which comes with them," 
 &c. Two Years Ago, vol. i. p. 70. 
 
90 Essays on the 
 
 after the same manner from the husband to the 
 wife, and be by her conveyed to the children she 
 may subsequently bear to a second husband, him- 
 self perfectly free of all syphilitic taint. Whether 
 any other morbid states besides these e.g., mania, 
 epilepsy, gout, &c., which are unquestionably 
 hereditary may thus be imparted and transmitted, 
 it is at present impossible to say. Enough appears, 
 however, from a consideration of the transmission 
 of healthy qualities, and from what is known in 
 regard to the transmission of syphilis, to impart 
 to the whole inquiry as to the transmission of 
 morbid qualities, an interest of the highest prac- 
 tical kind, and that in a social as well as in a 
 purely professional point of view. So important 
 may it yet be ascertained to be, in contemplating 
 marriage with a widow, to have regard to the 
 constitutional peculiarities of the deceased husband. 
 So much for the general outline I spoke of at 
 the outset fuller, indeed, than was intended, but, 
 perhaps, not more so than it was necessary to 
 premise in order to the right understanding of our 
 proper subject the foetus in utero, as the channel 
 of transmission of secondary or constitutional 
 syphilis from the male to the female parent. 
 
 II. Taking up, now, the subject of syphilis in 
 connection with the alleged inoculating power of 
 the fcetus, let me just observe at the outset, that 
 there are two points of view from which it may be 
 regarded two objects with which its investigation 
 may be conducted : First, as a part of the history 
 
Foetus in Utero. 91 
 
 of syphilis, and in relation to pathological and 
 practical ends ; and, secondly, as a test or criterion 
 of the general doctrine of inoculation itself, its 
 special value as a test lying in this, that nothing 
 like mental influence can possibly be imagined to 
 have any share in the transmission of the virus. 
 And these two objects, although so far distinct, 
 need not nay cannot be separated, in the prose- 
 cution of our scientific inquiries. That is to say, 
 if such inquiry shall demonstrate that the syphilitic 
 poison in its constitutional form may be, and 
 actually is, transmitted nay, is only communi- 
 cated, and is communicable only, from the husband 
 to the wife through the foetus while this fact 
 would form a real, a practically important, addition 
 to our knowledge of the laws of that poison, it would, 
 at the same time, establish the general doctrine of 
 inoculation, as exemplified in other modes, and 
 resting on other grounds ; and it would impart, 
 besides, a peculiar strength to the evidence in sup- 
 port of it thus derived, because absolutely devoid 
 of all leaven of the fallacy which may be supposed 
 to attach to that and every other source of evidence. 
 1. The first question I shall consider, as more 
 obviously connecting itself with the general features 
 of the cases already referred to, and exemplified in 
 Lord Morton's mare, is Whether a woman, twice 
 married first to a constitutionally syphilitic hus- 
 band, next to a husband untainted by that poison 
 and fruitful by both, may herself (not otherwise 
 tainted than through her former husband) infect 
 the children of her second marriage ? 
 
92 Essays on the 
 
 In seeking formerly (in 1849) for a solution of 
 this question, which 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 affection 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. 
 Referring to Lord Morton's mare, and Mr. Giles' 
 sow, Dr. Montgomery remarked, in 1837, in 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, having 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 effected 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. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 93 
 
 What Dr. Montgomery here suggested as a probable 
 occurrence, and then merely suspected, he has 
 since been able to substantiate as a fact : 
 
 " Such " (he observes in the second edition of that work, pub- 
 lished in 1856) "was the opinion I expressed in 1837; and 
 further experience and observation have, I think, shown to be a 
 fact what I could then only venture to say I believed to be 
 likely." 
 
 He then proceeds to quote two cases in support of 
 this observation one from M. Yidal, the other 
 from M. Cazenave remarking afterwards that, 
 while he thought the observation of the fact was 
 original with himself, he had found it was made 
 long ago by others by M. Gardien, in 1824, and 
 by Dr. F. H. Ramsbotham, in 1835.* In the case 
 given by Cazenave,f the syphilitic taint was trans- 
 
 * We shall see by and by how clearly Dr. Ramsbotham had 
 divined it. It seems to me, however, very doubtful whether M. 
 Gardien had any conception of it whatever, judging at least from 
 the passage referred to by Dr. Montgomery, and which is as 
 follows, "Le moment de la conception devient quelquefois une 
 circonstance qui favorise chez la femme le developpement de 
 differens virus qui e"taient restes sans action jusqu'a ce moment. 
 L'e"tat de grossesse manifeste quelquefois des symptomes de virus 
 venerien qu'on n'avait pas encore apergu, et qui, sans cela, aurait 
 pu rester encore plus ou moins de temps engourdi. Le virus 
 syphilitique, avant la conception, pouvait circuler dans la masse 
 general e sans affecter aucune glande, et sans donner de marques 
 de sa presence : parceque ces organes n'etaient pas sensibles a son 
 action. La grossesse augmentant la sensibility, manifeste des 
 symptomes d'une infection ge'ne'rale, parceque les organes glandu 
 leux ressentent, a cette e"poque, les impressions du virus venerien, 
 auquel ils e"taient insensibles auparavant.' ' ( " Traitd d' Accouch. " 
 1824, vol. ii. p. 29.) 
 
 f Traite des Syphilides, etc., p. 133. 
 
94 Essays on the 
 
 mitted by the mother to the children of her third 
 husband, as well as to those of her second ; but the 
 case is essentially defective, inasmuch as it is not 
 stated in what manner the woman originally became 
 affected. It would even appear from the narrative 
 of the case, that it was while a widow that she be- 
 came affected : and as it does not appear that she 
 had a child subsequently till she married her second 
 husband, it is probable that she acquired the disease 
 in the primary form, at least otherwise than through 
 impregnation. M. Vidal's case, however, is in 
 every respect unexceptionable, and exactly to the 
 point : 
 
 tc A woman, whose husband was affected with constitutional 
 syphilis, gave birth to a child, which in two months showed 
 symptoms of that disease, of which it died. The woman never 
 had any appearance of syphilitic affection, not even sufficient td 
 soil her linen. Her husband died, and, after remaining some 
 time a widow, she married a healthy man ; and about twenty 
 months afterwards, being four years after the former birth, she 
 bore a child, which in two months presented the same form of 
 syphilitic eruption which had appeared on the former child." 
 
 It is plain that opportunities for observing cases 
 of this description must be comparatively very rare. 
 A second marriage, indeed, on the part of widows, 
 is not uncommon ; but with the conditions requisite 
 for thus tracing the transmission of the syphilitic 
 poison, very uncommon. And it must be kept in 
 mind, that in some cases of this kind, the results of 
 observation (although, as we shall see, of great value 
 notwithstanding) will be of a negative character, as 
 in the following case given by Dr. James B. 
 Balfour : 
 
Foetus in Utero. 95 
 
 " A respectable young woman from the north was married to a 
 tradesman, who had no trace of syphilitic disease at the period of 
 marriage ; but he afterwards acknowledged that, two years before, 
 he had the disease, followed by slight secondary symptoms, which 
 had entirely disappeared under medical treatment, and he had 
 seen or felt nothing since. This woman complained of nothing 
 until about three months after she became pregnant. Then, how- 
 ever, symptoms of secondary syphilis became apparent spots of 
 psoriasis appeared on various parts of the body hard knots were 
 felt on the perineum, and on the external labise and within the 
 vagina there was a hard, knotty feeling over the whole mucous 
 surface. Her child exhibited a distinct syphilitic appearance, 
 which was removed by the usual treatment. Shortly after 
 delivery all symptoms of syphilis entirely disappeared ; and as she 
 shortly afterwards removed to the country, she was subjected to 
 no medical treatment. A few months afterwards her husband 
 died. She subsequently married a farmer. About six or eight 
 months since I saw her, and she has borne three children to her 
 second husband, and certainly more healthy children I could 
 not wish to see. She informed me that she had never been 
 under medical treatment since I had attended her, indeed she 
 never had a medical man near her, except during her confinements, 
 and that she had never suffered, during any of her pregnancies, 
 from anything like what she had done at the first one." 
 
 I shall not trouble you again with the details o 
 individual cases. But I have thought it desirable 
 to quote at length the two I have taken from Dr. 
 Balfour and M. Yidal, as being fair examples of the 
 kind of cases we may expect to meet with, and on 
 which our conclusions must be founded ; few of 
 them exactly tallying in every point ; most of them 
 having each its own special features, and the com- 
 parative value of the several cases being widely dif- 
 ferent none, however, being of any value in which 
 it does not clearly appear that the virus was imparted 
 to the female in its secondary or constitutional form 
 
96 Essays on the 
 
 only. In both the cases adduced this essential con- 
 dition was plainly apparent, but they differed in other 
 respects. In M. Vidal's the woman never exhibited 
 in her own person any symptoms of syphilis, but 
 gave proof of being tainted with it by giving birth 
 to a syphilitic child, got by her second husband, a 
 healthy man. In Dr. Balfour's this evidence was 
 wanting ; but the fact of the woman having imbibed 
 the poison from her first husband, appears from the 
 symptoms of it having shown themselves upon her- 
 self during her first pregnancy : the evidence thus 
 afforded deriving confirmation from this other fact, 
 that the child she then bore was also affected with it. 
 2. And this, for the most part, is the sort of proof 
 we should look for direct evidence furnished by 
 positive manifestations in the person of the mother, 
 and confirmed by like manifestations in that of the 
 child, of syphilitic taint. Although always interest- 
 ing, and indeed important to do so, it will not actually 
 be necessary, except in a very few cases (as in M. 
 Vidal's), to seek to trace the transmission of the virus 
 to the children of a second marriage, and of a healthy 
 father. The proof we require lies within a narrower 
 compass, and may be reached by a shorter process. 
 Dr. Balfour's case rather than M. Yidal's, is the type 
 of the cases we have to search for and to consider ; and, 
 fortunately for the investigation, they are of much 
 more frequent occurrence. And the question to be con- 
 sidered, in the first instance, is simply this Whether 
 ever a woman derives secondary syphilis from her 
 husband, when she conceives by him, and because of 
 her doing so. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 97 
 
 The evidence now available on this point, as far 
 as known to me, is of two kinds : First , General 
 statements of experience supplied by M. Ricord, 
 Dr. Montgomery, Dr. Tyler Smith, Dr. Carpenter, 
 and likewise by the author cf the review, in the 
 Edinburgh Medical Journal, of the new edition of 
 Dr. Montgomery's work, and by Dr. Ramsbotham : 
 and, secondly, Specific instances observed and 
 recorded by various writers. 
 
 Let us first consider the former branch of the 
 evidence. M. Ricord, one of the highest authorities 
 on all points relabing to syphilis, observes that his 
 experience goes to prove, that in the case of a woman 
 pregnant of a child whose blood is contaminated with 
 syphilis acquired from the father, this child may, 
 and often actually does, contaminate the mother's 
 system : 
 
 " So long as a diseased father (says M. Ricord) is under the influ- 
 ence of constitutional syphilis, the germ which is by him conveyed 
 into the uterus carries along with it the syphilitic diathesis. . . 
 There is no such thing as an infection of the child by the mother, 
 she having been contaminated by the father ; but the husband 
 procreates an infected child, which may then propagate the 
 secondary poison to the mother for where there are no children 
 the mother does not suffer."* 
 
 Dr. Montgomery, in the last edition of his " Signs 
 and Symptoms of Pregnancy," speaking of this very 
 point, remarks, that " there can be no doubt of the 
 frequent occurrence of the fact." Dr. Tyler Smith's 
 testimony is, that the most common mode in which 
 
 * The Lancet, April 8, 1848, p. 383. See also Mr. Acton's 
 work on Syphilis, p. 632. 
 
98 Essays on the 
 
 women become affected with syphilitic uterine 
 disorder, is, lie believes, that in which the foetus is 
 the medium of communication.* Dr. Carpenter, 
 speaking of the inoculation theory, says : 
 
 " This idea is bome out by a great number of important facts ; 
 and it serves to explain the circumstance, well known to practi- 
 tioners, that secondary syphilis will often appear in a female during 
 gestation or after parturition, who has never had primary sx mp- 
 toms, whilst the father of the child shows no recent syphilitic 
 disorder/'f 
 
 And the reviewer referred to observes 
 
 "That a woman may get syphilis from a man without any ex- 
 ternal disease namely, by bearing a syphilitic child in the womb 
 of her previously healthy body, which child infects her with the 
 disease : and that she may then exhibit outward signs of the 
 disease now in her constitution or, without this, may prove her 
 syphilitic taint, by producing syphilitic children to another 
 perfectly healthy father." 
 
 Let us see, further, on this branch of the evidence, 
 what Dr. Hamsbotham says. Among the first, if not 
 the first to suggest the possibility nay, the great 
 probability of this mode of transmission of the 
 syphilitic poison, nothing can be clearer or more 
 explicit than his observations on it : 
 
 Cf It is a generally received opinion, I believe, that syphilis 
 in its secondary stage, is not communicable directly to either sex 
 from the other that the disease is not propagated unless there 
 exist an open chancre ; and this accords with my observation. 
 But it appears to me probable, that if a previously healthy woman 
 conceive of an ovum tainted by syphilitic virus derived from its 
 father, her system may become inoculated during the progress of 
 
 * See Association Medical Journal, July 14, 1854. 
 f Principles of Human Physiology, 5th edition, p. 826. 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 99 
 
 gestation, in consequence of the close vascular connection existing 
 between it and herself ; for it has fallen to my lot to see more than 
 one case in which a young woman, united to a man labouring 
 under obstinate secondary symptoms, remained healthy for some 
 months after marriage, but became the subject of the same disease 
 in its secondary form soon after impregnation had taken place ; 
 and / have considered that, in such a case, the mother derived 
 the disease, not directly from the father, but from the affected 
 infant which she carried in her womb."* 
 
 These are strong and unequivocal statements, and 
 the specific evidence furnished by individual cases 
 is equally decided. To what extent the records of 
 medicine can now supply examples of this descrip- 
 tion, I cannot say. But I have already repeatedly 
 alluded to those brought forward by Dr. Balfour 
 and by Mr. Hutchinson ; and it is to these that I 
 would now particularly refer. The former gives 
 four or five cases, the latter as many as fifty. To 
 be duly appreciated, these cases must be examined 
 individually and compared together a task which 
 it were foreign to my object to enter upon at present, 
 even were it possible to accomplish it without 
 actually reproducing the cases in detail. It must 
 suffice, therefore, thus to refer to them, and to 
 remark that, having carefully considered them, I 
 think they conclusively establish in the affirmative 
 the question presently before us ; proving that a 
 woman may, and often actually does derive syphilis 
 from her husband, when she conceives by him, and 
 in consequence of her doing so. 
 
 3. The next question to be considered is Whether 
 at each pregnancy there may be a renewal of the 
 
 * Medical Gazette for May 23, 1835. 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo Essays on the 
 
 symptoms of secondary syphilis in the woman im- 
 plying that she has from some source, or from some 
 cause connected with the state of utero-gestation, 
 imbibed a fresh dose of poison ? 
 
 On this point, and speaking apparently of uterine 
 syphilitic affection, Dr. Tyler Smith stated at a 
 meeting of the Medico- Chirurgical Society, that 
 " he had observed in such cases, that at each preg- 
 nancy a fresh dose of the syphilitic poison is im- 
 parted to the mother, unless in the meantime the 
 husband had been the subject of anti-syphilitic 
 treatment."* Mr. Hutchinson's experience as 
 regards the ordinary secondary symptoms is to the 
 same effect. Our time will not allow me to refer 
 specially to his cases, as bearing on this question ; 
 but it will suffice to quote his own general conclu- 
 sion : " Increase of symptoms and relapses may be 
 produced by repetition of exposure to contagion "- 
 i.e., by the woman again becoming pregnant. And 
 in one of Dr. Balfour's cases, the first in his collec- 
 tion, there was a recurrence of the syphilitic symp- 
 toms during the second pregnancy. 
 
 The positive value of the fact thus clearly ascer- 
 tained, and still more, its value in relation to other 
 facts, and as checking or testing these, I am disposed 
 to rate very high.t The consideration of it, how- 
 
 * See Association Medical Journal for July 14, 1854. 
 
 f As this point is important, I hope I may be excused, if, in 
 order to bring it fully into view, I adduce here so much of Dr. 
 Baifour's first case the only one in which relapse occurred as is 
 illustrative of it : " By the time the lady recovered from her 
 confinement, and the lochial discharge had ceased, all trace of the 
 
Fcetus in Utero. lot 
 
 ever, in this view, must be reserved till another 
 question yet to be proposed comes before us. 
 Nevertheless, to meet an exception that may be 
 taken to it, it will be necessary at this stage to 
 point out how the fact really stands. The reappear- 
 ance of the syphilitic symptoms in the mother during 
 a second or subsequent pregnancy, seems certainly 
 to imply that she has received a fresh dose of the 
 virus, and likewise that she has received it directly 
 from and through the foetus. But it does not abso- 
 lutely follow that in every such instance the foetus 
 derives the virus from the father. In most instances 
 it no doubt does. M. Vidal's case, however, is 
 sufficient to show that it may derive it from the 
 mother exclusively ; and in as far as it does, the 
 reinfection of the mother comes remotely from 
 herself. But this does not alter the character of 
 the fact, or impair its value. Why, while long 
 previously dormant in her system, the virus should 
 thus again become active and reappear, we shall 
 
 syphilitic affection had entirely left, and she was so completely 
 restored to health that I did not deem any medical interference 
 necessary. She enjoyed excellent health, and made a good nurse, 
 and continued quite free from any return of the disease for 
 more than fifteen months, when she again became pregnant. 
 About two months after this occurred, a train of symptoms 
 precisely similar to the first appeared, and continued as formerly 
 up to the time of her confinement, when they again disappeared 
 as on the former occasion. The second child was also syphilitic." 
 It cannot well be supposed that during the interval between the 
 two pregnancies, no sexual intercourse obtained between this 
 lady and her husband till just previously to the second ; and 
 that the relapse and the reimpregnation were merely coincident. 
 
IO2 Essays on the 
 
 afterwards consider ; merely remarking at present 
 that the like question may be raised, and admits of 
 a like solution, in regard to the power of the virus 
 when long dormant in the father's system to infect 
 the child. 
 
 4. Another question still remains Whether ever 
 a woman derives secondary syphilis from her 
 husband unless she conceives by him ? And the 
 question to which this stands opposed is Whether 
 she may not derive the virus through the seminal 
 fluid also, and indifferently at any time ? 
 
 This question, which was suggested to me by Mr. 
 Paget (Sir James), as it was, I believe, to him by 
 the perusal of my own observations on this subject 
 in my first paper, is perhaps the most important of 
 all.* Previously, however, to taking it up, the 
 consideration already referred to, as to the power 
 of a seemingly dormant virus, demands attention. 
 And it does so as enabling us to understand why 
 if the fact be so it is through the foetus only, and 
 
 * The alternative question might have been framed in more 
 general terms so as to include tainted preputial as well as 
 urethral mucous secretions, together with exudations from 
 vesicular or pustular eruptions on the penis. But I have 
 restricted it to the seminal fluid, in accordance with Mr. Paget's 
 communication. "I would venture to suggest," Mr. Paget wrote 
 me, "that you should try to find whether ever a woman derives 
 secondary syphilis from her husband unless she conceives by him. 
 Facts bearing on this point might prove that secondary syphilis is 
 not communicated directly by the seminal fluid, but by the child 
 begotten with it ; and this mode of inoculation being proved, 
 would go far to prove the foundation of your theory " i.e. Mr. 
 M'Gillivray's. 
 
Feet us in Utero. 103 
 
 during pregnancy alone, that the female derives the 
 virus from her husband, or, in a few cases, virtually 
 reinfects herself ; and, likewise, in the absence of 
 positive proof, and until such proof is adduced, that 
 she may and does, making it probable that she will 
 not and cannot derive it through the seminal fluid, 
 and indifferently at any time. 
 
 Now, although in many cases, in the lower ranks 
 of life particularly, the syphilitic symptoms in the 
 husband may continue to show themselves, and be 
 severe or well-marked even after marriage, the 
 general fact, I apprehend, is, that among all classes, 
 and certainly in the higher, they have long previ- 
 ously disappeared ; that in a large proportion of the 
 cases they were originally mild, or very slight in the 
 later periods of their manifestation; and, further, 
 that, to all appearance, the virus itself has been 
 completely eradicated from the system. Facts, 
 indeed, clearly demonstrate that it must still be 
 present there. But facts demonstrate, also, that it 
 must be present in such quantity and in such con- 
 dition as to be incapable of again exciting actual 
 disease in him. And the question arises how, 
 under such circumstances, should the virus be 
 capable of tainting and sensibly affecting the child 
 begotten by him ? The answer is not far to seek. 
 In accordance with the known laws both of physi- 
 ology and of the morbific poisons, the foetus, being an 
 entirely new formation, and the seat and subject of 
 nutritive changes of great activity, will be peculiarly 
 susceptible of the virus ; and the virus itself, although 
 existing in the father's system, and imparted by him 
 
IO4 Essays on the 
 
 to the foetus in a quantity which may be infinitesi- 
 mally small, acting as a, ferment, multiplies itself in 
 the blood of the foetus, and at length accumulates 
 there in such quantity, acquiring at the same time 
 such efficiency as to produce in it manifest syphilitic 
 disease. The like explanation will apply to the 
 cases in which (as in M. Vidal's), the virus is derived 
 by the foetus from the mother. And that the foetus 
 thus contaminated, whether by the mother or the 
 father, and thus actually affected by the poison, 
 should readily infect or reinfect the mother, is only 
 w r hat might reasonably be expected. Thus, strictly 
 speaking, it is not the father that directly affects the 
 mother. It is the foetus that does so. The virus, 
 in passing from the father to the mother, passes 
 first into the system of the foetus, and there multi- 
 plying, acquires the requisite power. And it may 
 be, and I confess I cannot but believe that it is 
 thus only that, while latent in the system of the 
 husband, or appearing only in the slight and mild 
 tertiary form, it ever will or can affect his wife. 
 
 To revert now to the questions put a little ago- 
 We have already seen that the female may, and 
 often does derive syphilis from her husband when 
 she conceives by him, and that whether remotely 
 derived now from herself or not she may, and 
 often does again exhibit the like symptoms on a 
 subsequent impregnation. But may she not also do 
 so independently of conception, and at any time ? 
 May not sexual intercourse alone, and the mere 
 application of the seminal fluid, or of tainted pre- 
 putial secretions, suffice to impart the virus to her ? 
 
Foetus in Utero. 105 
 
 I am inclined to think not. It were a rash asser- 
 tion to say that its occurrence is impossible, and one 
 at least which it would require a large amount of 
 negative evidence to make good. We know that a 
 syphilitic infant may infect its nurse, and it is clear 
 that the infection must come to her through her 
 own nipple and the infant's mouth abrasion or 
 fissure of the nipple being probably a condition 
 essential to the result. In this case, however, we 
 have an infant labouring under actual syphilitic 
 disease ; and if infection be possible in the case of 
 man and wife without impregnation, I apprehend it 
 is so only in cases in which the man is at the time 
 actually diseased, and of these, probably in those 
 only, in which the female is labouring under ulcera- 
 tion or abrasion of the os uteri. But that it is 
 possible in cases in which the syphilitic affection in 
 the man is altogether latent, or shows itself in its 
 slighter forms, and the mucous surfaces in the 
 woman are entire I do not believe. Yet it is in 
 cases of this description that it is so often seen in 
 connection with pregnancy the woman healthy, 
 and the man without any ostensible syphilitic affec- 
 tion. 
 
 The question, however, is one of fact. A single 
 well authenticated and unequivocal instance of 
 infection occurring independently of conception, 
 would establish the infecting power of the seminal 
 fluid ; or else of certain others of the male genital 
 secretions. Have any such cases ever been met with 
 and recorded ? Dr. Balfour refers to none, and 
 seems to consider it certain " that the mere fact of 
 
io6 Essays on the 
 
 coitus between the woman and her husband is not 
 sufficient to produce the disease." Mr. Hutchinson 
 states that he has met with but one case of this 
 class ; but he regards it as a doubtful one, and he 
 holds it to be " extremely doubtful if ' contagion by 
 the seminal fluid ' be possible " observing " that 
 cases are extremely rare in which married women 
 who have never conceived, become the subjects of 
 constitutional taint without having had primary 
 symptoms, and are in all probability to be explained 
 as errors of observation." And, as we have seen, 
 M. Ricord states emphatically, that " when there 
 are no children the mother does not suffer." I have 
 not myself met with any, although for nearly eight 
 years I have had my attention directed to cases of 
 this description ; nor have I been able in the course 
 of my reading to find any described. It is true that 
 writing in 1850, I said " I fear it will turn out on 
 inquiry, that secondary syphilis may be transmitted 
 directly by the seminal fluid, independently of 
 conception." Bat this apprehension was founded, 
 contrary to my hope, on answers I received to 
 inquiries made of some professional friends of 
 experience in this department of practice, who 
 thought they had seen cases in which the female 
 had been tainted by her husband, and (the idea of 
 inoculation through the foetus being new to them, 
 and appearing strange) were persuaded that the 
 contamination must needs have occurred through the 
 seminal fluid. To the apprehension, however, then 
 expressed, I appended this remark : " but perhaps 
 it may appear also that its transmission in this way 
 
Foetus in Utero. 107 
 
 (i.e., by the seminal fluid) is occasional only and un- 
 certain, while it is very frequent, or almost inevitable, 
 when conception follows intercourse " adding, that 
 " a comparative observation of this kind, if clear 
 and undoubted, would be nearly equally decisive. " 
 Essay Second, p. 43. 
 
 Now, however, without raising any question as to 
 the abstract possibility or impossibility of maternal 
 inoculation through the semen of the male parent, 
 or otherwise by him independently of impregnation, 
 we are, I submit, in a position to say confidently, 
 and that mainly through the labours of Mr. 
 Hutchinson, Dr. Balfour, Dr. R/amsbotham, M. 
 Hicord, and others, first, that no evidence of a 
 reliable kind has yet been adduced to show that 
 inoculation apart from conception, or otherwise 
 than concurrently with it, has ever occurred, or 
 been known to occur ; and, secondly, that inocula- 
 tion by the foetus never suspected until within 
 these last few years, is not only possible, but is 
 at once the special mode in which it is effected, 
 and the only mode in which it is known to be 
 effected, while it is of very frequent occurrence 
 besides. 
 
 Nothing, I think, can now set aside these conclu- 
 sions. Further observations may modify them ; 
 but the evidence on which they rest is large enough 
 and clear enough to enable us confidently to rely 
 upon them. And its strength lies not merely in the 
 number of instances in which different females have 
 become infected with secondary syphilis when they 
 
loS Essays on the 
 
 conceived, and then only, but in which the same 
 female has been reinfected simultaneously with re- 
 impregnation, and at no other time continuing free 
 from syphilitic affection for months together, although 
 cohabiting with the tainted husband, and then suffer- 
 ing again on again becoming pregnant. It is this 
 which makes the evidence not merely convincing 
 but irresistibly conclusive. Conclusive it is in a 
 twofold sense a negative and a positive sense. 
 Intercourse between husband and wife to any 
 extent, or for any length of time, harmless, as long- 
 as there is no specific result from it. But no longer. 
 Impregnation effected, inoculation also effected. 
 Cumulative evidence of this kind may, in truth, be 
 said to have already effectually set aside all notion 
 of inoculation by the male semen, or in any way 
 save and except by impregnation. 
 
 III. This properly concludes what I have to say 
 on the foetus in utero as the channel of transmission 
 of secondary or constitutional syphilis from the 
 male to the female parent. Practically important 
 on its own account as the subject is, it is physiologi- 
 cally important also, as a test or criterion of the 
 general doctrine of inoculation through the foetus. 
 Did our time permit, I would endeavour to point out 
 its bearing in this relation, and its peculiar value. I 
 would proceed to show you that there probably are 
 in nature two sets of cases, or two classes of facts, 
 connected with the peculiarities seen in the offspring 
 of mammalia, analogous, nay, identical in their 
 external characters, but widely different in their 
 origin and in the conditions of their production ; 
 
Feet us in Utero. 109 
 
 the one referable to mental states in one or other of 
 the parents, but oftenest to mental states in the 
 female, and operating on her either at the time of 
 conception or during the early stage of pregnancy ;* 
 the other to a change effected in the constitutional 
 and reproductive powers of the female by a physical 
 agency, originally extrinsic to her, but ioherent in 
 a former feet as by derivation from its male pro- 
 genitor, and conveyed to her in the way of inocula- 
 tion by that foetus while in utero. 
 
 To establish this, and to demonstrate also the 
 relative proportion in which the two sets of cases 
 obtain, together with the comparative efficacy of 
 their respective causes, and the conditions that are 
 essential to the action of each, would be an achieve- 
 ment in physiology of great general interest ; and, 
 in relation to the practice of medicine on the one 
 hand, and the breeding of stock on the other, of 
 real practical importance. 
 
 But, in the investigation of one of the branches 
 of this subject, the first and essential point is to 
 make good the law or principle on which it rests 
 to be well assured that the foundation is secure. 
 And it is in this point of view that the inquiry as 
 to syphilis is so important. As regards it, there 
 can be no room for suspecting that mental causes 
 can possibly be concerned in the transmission of 
 the virus from the father to the mother. A child 
 born into the world with unmistakeable manifesta- 
 
 * See ex. yr., the case of the mare and horse (a gelding) 
 narrated in Essay Third, pp. 60, 61. 
 
no Essays on the 
 
 tions of syphilis on its body, begotten by a healthy 
 man, but the fruit of a second marriage, and the 
 first husband and the children of this marriage 
 syphilitic also, could not for a moment be supposed 
 to have come by it per fortem imaginationem of its 
 mother, as it might be, if, instead of syphilis, it had 
 the nose or the features of its mother's former 
 husband. As little likely is the mother, by such an 
 effort of mind at the moment of conception, thus to 
 contaminate herself.* 
 
 Our time, however, will not allow me to do more 
 than to indicate in this brief manner the value of 
 the syphilitic test of the inoculation per fcetum 
 theory; and to add, that, while it seems to me to 
 establish it beyond the reach of all doubt or cavil 
 the great extent to which recent observations have 
 shown the general fact exemplified in Lord Morton's 
 mare to hold among cattle, sheep, dogs, horses, and 
 others of our domestic animals, as compared with 
 the limited extent to which mental causes are seen 
 to influence the development of offspring, sufficiently 
 
 * There seems to be with, some as little limit to the physio- 
 logical agency of the imagination as to their own exercise of this 
 faculty. In a case of legitimacy that came before it, the parlia- 
 ment of Grenoble went as far as to declare the issue legitimate, 
 although the husband had been four years absent from his wife, 
 on the ground of an allegation by the latter, that she had con- 
 ceived through the power of the imagination alone : " Ut mulier 
 per fortem imaginationem putaverit se in somnis rem habuisse 
 cum marito, atque sic concepisse." Had the child, however, been 
 born syphilitic, it is possible that the parliament might have come 
 to a different decision straining at a gnat, albeit making no diffi- 
 culty of swallowing a camel. 
 
Foetus in Utero. in 
 
 demonstrates that in the great majority of cases of 
 this description, the inoculation principle is that 
 concerned in their production. 
 
 IV. There is yet another test of this inoculation 
 principle, for the suggestion of which, as of the 
 former, I am indebted to the sagacity of Mr. Paget. 
 The phenomenon exemplified in Lord Morton's mare 
 ought, by the theory, to be restricted to animals of 
 the class mammalia, that is to animals in which the 
 young are developed within the body of the mother, 
 and between which and the mother there exists a 
 placental connection during the whole period of 
 intra-uterine life. But is it actually so restricted ? 
 May it not be seen in birds, in which the young are 
 wholly developed outside the mother's body, and 
 between which and the mother there is no placental 
 connection ? 
 
 Now, among bird fanciers crossing is perhaps as 
 extensively practised as it is with our domestic 
 quadrupeds. Nothing, for example, is more common 
 than to breed the barn-door hen with the bantam 
 cock one year, and the next year with a cock of her 
 own kind ; or the hen-canary one year with either 
 the cock- linnet or the cock-goldfinch, and the next 
 with the cock-canary. In these and other cases of 
 the like kind, cross birds or mules are obtained the 
 first year ; and these, in accordance with the law 
 laid down by Mr. Orton, of Sunderland, take very 
 strongly after the cock. But are the birds obtained 
 the following year, when the parent birds are both 
 of the same species and of the same breed, perfectly 
 pure, that is, without taint or trace of any of the 
 
1 1 2 Essays on the 
 
 characteristics of the male bird with, which the 
 hen was bred from the previous year ? 
 
 On this point I made very extensive inquiry 
 several years ago in quarters where information was 
 to be had, carefully concealing the object I had in 
 view in making the inquiry ; and the uniform result 
 was, as I stated in 1851, in my pamphlet " On a 
 Remarkable Effect of Cross-Breeding," that no 
 trace or admixture of those antecedent male birds 
 is ever seen in subsequent broods, the birds pro- 
 duced being in every instance as pure as in those in 
 which no such crossing had been previously effected 
 with the mother-bird. 
 
 It is but right, however, to state that two dif- 
 ferent individuals, writing quite independently of 
 each other, have alleged that the reverse is the true 
 state of the case. One of these is Mr. Orton, of 
 Sunderland ; the other, the reviewer in the Aberdeen 
 Journal newspaper (February, 1851) of my pamphlet 
 on Cross-Breeding. 
 
 The latter, quoting my remarks on this point in 
 the pamphlet, says : 
 
 "He gives Mr. M'GKllivray's theory one advantage which is 
 not its due. So far from its being the case that the peculiar 
 effect of crossing here in question, fails to be seen in birds, it 
 is in them that it is most of all apparent. It is well known that 
 a hen-canary is rendered useless for breeding pure canaries by 
 crossing for mules. After a cross with a goldfinch or linnet, no 
 peculiar feature of these birds may turn up in subsequent broods 
 by a male bird of the hen's own species, but every nest will be 
 discoloured ; and so long as the hen produces young, it will be 
 remarkable indeed, if a clean yellow canary be found among her 
 progeny. This," he adds, "may easily be certified; and we are 
 inclined to think that it must be regarded, as in a great measure 
 
Foetus in Utero. 113 
 
 destructive of the theory of the purely physical cause of inocu- 
 lation. " 
 
 And so it would if true, but for the syphilitic 
 test. This, it seems to me, places the theory in 
 question beyond all doubt. But without speculating 
 at present on the conclusions to be drawn from the 
 fact, if the case be as this writer represents it, let us 
 first consider whether it be a true or a " false " fact. 
 Now, on reading the statement I have quoted, I 
 sought and obtained a personal interview with the 
 writer, and found that he could speak much less 
 confidently than he had written, and, in particular, 
 that he wrote from hearsay, and without any per- 
 sonal knowledge or experience in the matter. Having 
 ascertained this, I subsequently renewed the inquiries 
 I had formerly made, with the same precaution as 
 before to conceal the object I had in view, but among 
 a larger number of bird-fanciers, and with respect 
 to a much greater variety of the bird tribe. The 
 result of this inquiry was, in every instance, the 
 same as that of the former inquiry. None of my 
 informants had ever seen anything that corresponded 
 with the statement of the writer in the Aberdeen 
 Journal. 
 
 More recently Mr. Orton, taking exception to the 
 inoculation theory altogther, observes : 
 
 " The hen does not carry her offspring in utero. Notwithstand- 
 ing, her offspring, as we have already seen, are as liable to be in- 
 fluenced by the action under discussion (i.e., by crossing) as are 
 those of mammalia. " 
 
 And again 
 
 ' ' Hens and their offspring have not this uterine connection ; 
 consequently, they cannot undergo the process of inoculation laid 
 
 I 
 
114 Essays on the 
 
 down, yet they are, equally with mammalia, the subjects of this 
 peculiar law of breeding. * 
 
 In the latter statement, Mr, Orton speaks abso- 
 lutely ; in the former, from an instance in point 
 previously referred to, or adduced in some part of 
 his paper. In all probability the absolute statement 
 is founded on the specific, and to be judged of by it. 
 Now, on referring to the instance which proves the 
 ground of the latter, it is seen to be such an in- 
 stance as would not be relied on, or regarded of 
 any value whatever, in the case of a mammal. 
 It is a case, not in which a hen-bird was bred 
 from with a cock of her own breed, after having pre- 
 viously been bred from with a cock of a different 
 species, but the reverse of this a bantam hen 
 having been bred from with a cock silk-fowl, and 
 producing cross birds, after having been bred from 
 the previous year with a bantam cock ; and the 
 observation relied on by Mr. Orton as fatal to the 
 inoculation theory was, that some of the birds of 
 this brood bore a greater resemblance to the bantam, 
 and less to the silk-fowl than did others. But this 
 by no means warrants the inference, that the more 
 decided resemblance of them to the bantam was 
 due to the influence of the bantam cock of the pre- 
 ceding year. And I will venture confidently to 
 affirm, to take a case in which a considerable 
 number of young are thrown off at each litter, 
 that, if a sow of a particular breed and colour be 
 
 * On the Physiology of Breeding, in the Newcastle Chronicle, 
 Nov. 10, 1854. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 115 
 
 served with a boar of a widely different colour and 
 breed, the sow never having been bred from before, 
 the litter will be mixed ; some of the young pigs 
 taking chiefly after the boar, others of them chiefly 
 after the sow. This test, therefore, which may be 
 called the bird test, is thus seen to be of no value 
 whatever. It tells nothing against the inoculation 
 theory. Nay, it serves, negatively, to add confir- 
 mation to it, and to lend support to the syphilis 
 test. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured, as impartially as one 
 partial to the inoculation theory well could, to lay 
 before you a complete general view of this interest- 
 ing and important subject. I have referred to every 
 fact known to me as bearing upon it, and have 
 omitted nothing that seems in any way adverse to 
 the theory in question. And submitting, in parti- 
 cular, the bird test and the syphilis test to the con- 
 sideration of those among you who may take an 
 interest in that theory, I will conclude by quoting a 
 suggestion made by Dr. Carpenter in regard to the 
 latter, but in its principle as applicable to the one 
 test as to the other : " As this is a point of great 
 practical importance, it may be hoped that those 
 who have the opportunity of bringing observation 
 to bear upon it, will not omit to do so."* 
 
 * Principles of Human Physiology, 5th Ed., p. 826. 
 
 i 2 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. In the appendix to Essay First, I referred to 
 a remarkable statement made by the excellent Count 
 de Strzelecki, as to the effect of fruitful inter- 
 course between the aboriginal female of certain 
 countries and the European male, in rendering the 
 female ever after sterile with a male of her own 
 race. The Count's statement, founded on " hundreds 
 of instances " coming under his own observation, un- 
 qualified by the observation of a single exceptional 
 instance, and bearing on the aborigines of Canada, 
 of the United States, of California, Mexico, the 
 South American Republics, the Marquesas, the Sand- 
 wich and Society Islands, and those of New Zealand 
 and Australia, is, that " whenever such intercourse 
 takes place, the native female is found to lose the 
 power of conception on a renewal of intercourse with 
 the males of her own race, retaining only that of 
 procreating with the white men." 
 
 Forbearing to trouble you with the application I 
 made formerly of this statement, on the assumption 
 of its being the expression of a general law of 
 
u8 Essays on the 
 
 nature, to the theory under consideration I think 
 it right to mention with regard to the statement 
 itself, that, while I then suggested the propriety of 
 u keeping the mean between the two extremes of 
 too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much 
 easiness in admitting " it to be a matter of fact, 
 I have since received such information as warrants 
 me in refusing to admit it as being universally 
 true, at least in respect of certain of the races 
 specified by the Count de Strzelecki. My friend 
 and former pupil, Dr. William Sim Murray, then of 
 Her Majesty's 20th Regiment of Foot, writing me 
 in November, 1851, from Montreal, where he was 
 quartered, says : 
 
 " Since my arrival here I have had an opportunity of speaking 
 to Dr. French on the subject of the Count de Stzelecki's observa- 
 tion, and he tells me that, his attention being directed to it some 
 time ago, he had made inquiries regarding it, and that he bad 
 obtained positive assertions that squaws frequently do have children 
 by an Indian after bearing children to a European." 
 
 Again, Dr. Balfour, of Surinam, writing me in 
 April, 1851, observes : 
 
 " Living for many years in this district of South America, sur- 
 rounded by a motley population of whites, negroes, and Indians, 
 I have had very frequent opportunities of observing that Strzelecki's 
 opinion of the effect of fruitful intercourse of the European male 
 with the women of the aboriginal race (Indians here) is not borne 
 out by the facts constantly occurring. The Indians of this district, 
 known as the tribes of Warou and Arrawacka Indians, are certainly 
 decreasing fast, but principally from the effects of that curse of the 
 aborigines fire-water. The women of these tribes are notoriously 
 profligate during the earlier part of their life after puberty ; but after 
 bearing children to Europeans are frequently fruitful with men of 
 their own race. This is particularly observed with the women of 
 the Warou tribe, a camp of which tribe is in the immediate 
 
Foetus in Utero. 119 
 
 neighbourhood of the barracks, where a large detachment of Euro- 
 pean troops is constantly stationed. Any person resident in this 
 district could at once refer to examples of this." 
 
 And, if I mistake not, a paper was published in 
 the Edinburgh Monthly Journal in 1851 or 1852, in 
 which the author, either writing from the antipodes, 
 or giving the result of his observations while there 
 whether in Australia or New Zealand, I do not 
 now recollect states that exceptional instances, at 
 least, to Strzelecki's observation are of frequent 
 occurrence among the aboriginal females of one or 
 other or both of these countries. 
 
 II. Since the foregoing Essay was written, and read 
 to the Medical Society of Southampton, several 
 important communications bearing on the subject of 
 the inoculation theory have appeared in the Lancet, 
 from Mr. Savory, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital,* 
 Mr. Langston Parker, of Birmingham,! and Mr. 
 De Meric, of London .J I purpose considering these 
 several communications in a future number of this 
 journal, and will merely remark, meanwhile, that, 
 by his well - conceived and admirably - executed 
 experiments with strychnine, Mr. Savory has 
 demonstrated (what Magendie and Williams failed 
 in demonstrating by theirs), that fluid matters do, 
 
 " An Experimental Inquiry into the Effect upon the Mother 
 of Poisoning the Foetus." Lancet, April 10 and 17, 1858. 
 
 f- Lectures on Infantile Syphilis. Lancet, May and June, 
 1858. 
 
 Lettsomian Lectures Lecture III. " On Hereditary 
 Syphilis." Lancet, September 12, 1858. 
 
I2O Essays on the Foetus in Utero. 
 
 in fact, pass from the foetus to the mother through 
 the placenta. Mr. Savory has thus added to the 
 chain of evidence in support of the inoculation 
 theory, the only link wanting to make that chain 
 complete. Or, to put it otherwise, his discovery, for 
 such it is, may be said to furnish the keystone of 
 the arch on which the theory now rests, and rests 
 securely. (See Essay Fifth, pp. 130, 131.) 
 
ESSAY FIFTH. 
 
 REMARKS ON A CASE BY THE LATE MR. HEY, OF LEEDS, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE TRANSMISSION THROUGH THE 
 
 FCETUS OF SECONDARY SYPHILIS FROM THE 
 
 MALE TO THE FEMALE PARENT. 
 
FROM 
 
 THE INDIAN ANNALS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 
 Calcutta, Vol. xx., 1866. 
 
ESSAY FIFTH. 
 
 ON THE FCETUS IIST UTERO, ETC. 
 
 IN a letter to Mr. Pearson, of London, of date 
 April 8, 1816, entitled "Facts Illustrating the 
 Effects of the Venereal Disease on the Foetus in 
 Utero, and the modes of its communication," and 
 published in the " Transactions of the Medico- 
 Chirurgical Society of London " (vol. VII., part 
 II., pp. 541 et seq.), Mr. Hey remarks, that it has 
 appeared to him "from several instances, that a man 
 may communicate the lues venerea after all symp- 
 toms of the disease have been removed, and he is 
 judged to be in perfect health." And in illustra- 
 tion of this remark, he gives the following case : 
 " A few years ago, a gentleman requested to speak 
 with me in private. He was no sooner seated in 
 my study, than he burst into a flood of tears, and 
 seemed to be in the greatest distress. As soon as 
 he could regain his composure, he informed me 
 that he had married a lady whom he tenderly loved, 
 and now feared that he had injured her by com- 
 
124 Essays on the 
 
 municating the venereal disease, which he acknow- 
 ledged to have had before marriage, but from which 
 he believed himself to have been since that time 
 perfectly free. I saw no reason to doubt the truth 
 of his declaration. 
 
 " I visited the lady, and found her labouring 
 under a confirmed lues. The labia pudendi and 
 verge of the anus were beset with irregular fissures 
 and with condylomata ; a discharge of puriform 
 matter also issued from the vagina. She was ad- 
 vanced to the seventh month of pregnancy ; but, 
 before her delivery at the termination of the ninth 
 month, the diseased parts were healed, as I had 
 pursued a mercurial course with as much vigour as 
 seemed prudent in her condition. 
 
 " The child was at its full growth, and had no 
 other morbid appearance than an universal desqua- 
 mation of the cuticle. It continued well about a 
 month, and then began to grow extremely fretful, 
 though its evacuations indicated no disease in the 
 primae vise. At the same time, it began to have a 
 hoarse, squeaking voice, and soon exhibited a number 
 of copper-coloured blotches upon the skin. A scaly 
 eruption also appeared upon the chin ; and the anus 
 showed an unnatural redness. I had no hesitation 
 respecting the treatment ; but immediately com- 
 menced a mercurial course. The event was agree- 
 able to my wishes, and the child soon got well." 
 
 Mr. Hey then proceeds to set forth the grounds 
 on which he believed the affection under which both 
 the mother and the child laboured to be syphilis ; 
 after which he goes on to say " It may justly 
 
Foetus in Utero. 125 
 
 excite surprise that the gentleman in question 
 should have remained free from disease, when his 
 wife was in the condition which has been described." 
 And he " confesses himself unable to account for the 
 circumstances. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Hey, we have seen, cites the foregoing case 
 as one only of " several instances " of the kind he had 
 met with in the course of a practice, which, at the 
 time he wrote, had exi ended over a period of up- 
 wards of half a century. It is that of a man com- 
 municating the lues venerea to his wife not only 
 after the primary disease has been cured, but after 
 all symptoms of the disease have been removed, and 
 he is judged to be in perfect health. 
 
 It is to this point that I wish to call attention. 
 There is here no question as to whether in its overt 
 or manifest form, secondary syphilis is transmissible 
 from the male to the female sex, whether, for 
 example, a man actually ill of that form of syphilis, 
 and seen of all men to be so, may infect his wife. 
 The case just now in view is that of a man once 
 affected with syphilis, imparting the disease to his 
 wife after all traces of it have disappeared from him, 
 contracting marriage at a time when, to all appear- 
 ance, he is so entirely free of the poison as to be 
 entitled to a " clean bill of health," and yet in due 
 season, without again exposing himself to re-infec- 
 tion, infecting his wife. 
 
 Mr. Hey offers no explanation of this class of cases. 
 He seems to take it for granted manifestly he does 
 so that the man communicates the disease to his 
 wife directly. For, as to the case in hand, he ex- 
 
126 Essays on the 
 
 presses surprise that, after she had herself become 
 diseased to the extent described by him, the lady did 
 not, in her turn, re-infect her husband, now (in 
 his view) capable of re-infection. It puzzles him to 
 think how the man with no apparent trace about 
 him of the virus, yet able notwithstanding to impart 
 it to his wife, should in his seemingly sound state 
 have remained unaffected by her, she having the 
 labia pudendi and anus beset with fissures and 
 condylomata, and the vagina the seat of a puriform 
 discharge. It is the husband's immunity from re- 
 infection, not the wife's susceptibility of the virus, 
 that gives the case its main interest in Mr. Key's 
 eyes : the man apparently free of the virus, yet 
 infecting his wife ; . the wife " labouring under a 
 confirmed lues," yet failing tore-infect her husband ! 
 It is the marked contrast between the two in this 
 respect, that excites his surprise. But he raises no 
 question as to how it came about that the gentleman 
 contaminated his wife. 
 
 At the time Mr. Hey wrote (1816), no other ex- 
 planation of the transmission of the virus in such 
 cases, seems to have been thought of than this 
 namely, that it is somehow accomplished through 
 the agency of the man's secretions on the woman's 
 blood into which they are received, or on the 
 mucous surfaces of her body to which they are 
 applied, whether of the seminal fluid in coitu, or 
 of the mucous secretions, either in coitu or in 
 kissing. 
 
 It is only of late years, in fact, that another mode 
 of transmission has been suggested, that, namely, 
 
Fcetus in Utero. 127 
 
 through the foetus itself begotten of the father, 
 from him inheriting the virus, and having in utero 
 the disease resulting from it in such manner and 
 degree as to impart it to its mother, through the 
 medium of the placenta. 
 
 If this view "be correct, then it is not that the 
 husband directly contaminates his wife in any of the 
 ways formerly supposed, but that he begets a 
 syphilitic child, which child it is that really con- 
 taminates its mother. It is not his having sexual 
 intercourse with his wife that infects her, but his 
 begetting a syphilitic child within her body. 
 Impregnation, therefore, and not mere coitus, is 
 the essential condition of the conveyance of the 
 poison from the man to the woman. It is the 
 foetus that is the real transmitter of the poison. 
 In Mr. Key's case this condition obtained. When 
 consulted regarding it, Mr. Hey found the lady 
 " advanced to the seventh month of pregnancy." 
 And if in this case it was in the way just indicated 
 that the lady imbibed the virus and became diseased ; 
 and if, further, secondary syphilis is rarely (not to 
 say never), transmitted from husband to wife in 
 any other way, it will excite less surprise or no 
 surprise at all, that the gentleman escaped re- 
 infection, although cohabiting with his diseased 
 wife. 
 
 Some of my readers may possibly recollect that, 
 several years ago, Professor Harvey, of Aberdeen, 
 directed attention to the power of the foetus to 
 inoculate the maternal with the peculiarities of the 
 paternal organism ; and that he then suggested the 
 
128 Essays on the 
 
 probability of secondary syphilis being imparted in 
 this way.* 
 
 Since then Professor Paget, Mr. Jonathan Hutch- 
 inson, and others in England ; Dr. J. B. Balfour and 
 Dr. Matthews Duncan, in Scotland ; and MM. 
 Ricord and Diday, in France, have been working 
 in this field of inquiry ; and they have established, 
 as a matter of fact, what Dr Harvey could only then 
 indicate as probable. Long previously, however, 
 Dr. Ramsbotham, first of all (1835), and subse- 
 quently to him, Dr. Montgomery (1837), had given 
 expression to the very same idea. Nothing can be 
 clearer than Dr. Ramsbotham's own statement both 
 of the idea itself and of the grounds on which he 
 reached it : indeed, no more precise exposition of 
 either has yet been given by any that have come 
 after him. 
 
 "It is a generally received opinion, I believe, 
 (says Dr. Ramsbotham) that syphilis in its secondary 
 stage is not communicable directly to either sex 
 from the other, that the disease is not propagated 
 unless there exist an open chancre ; and this ac- 
 cords with my observation. But it appears to me 
 probable that, if a previously healthy woman con- 
 ceive of an ovum tainted by syphilitic virus derived 
 from its father, her system may become inoculated 
 during the progress of gestation, in consequence of the 
 close vascular connection existing between it and 
 herself. For, it has fallen to my lot to see more 
 
 * Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, October, 
 1849, and October and November, 1850. 
 
Foetus in Utero. 129 
 
 than one caee, in which, a young woman united to a 
 man labouring under obstinate secondary symp- 
 toms " (a much stronger case this than Mr. Hey's) 
 " remained healthy for some months after marriage, 
 but became the subject of the same disease in its 
 secondary form soon after impregnation had taken 
 place ; and I have considered that, in such a case, 
 the mother derived the disease not directly from the 
 father , but from the affected infant which she carried 
 in her womb."* 
 
 With regard to the general principle, so happily 
 expressed by Dr. Ramsbotham, namely this, " that, 
 in the class of cases in question, the woman derives 
 the syphilitic virus not directly from the man, but 
 from the infected infant begotten by him in her 
 womb," Professor Harvey has adduced such proof 
 as seems to me decisively to establish it.t 
 
 The proof is of this sort : proof, on the one hand, 
 that so long as the woman remains unimpregnated, 
 she may cohabit with a man affected w r ith secondary 
 syphilis even in an overt or palpable form, and escape 
 contamination ; proof, on the other hand, that, in the 
 even^} of impregnation occurring, she may and often 
 does become contaminated, even when the disease 
 exists in her husband in a latent and unsuspected 
 form : the contamination showing itself commonly 
 
 * Medical Gazette, May 23rd, 1835. 
 
 f "On the foetus in utero as inoculating the maternal with 
 the peculiarities of the paternal organism ; and on the trans- 
 mission thereby of secondary or constitutional syphilis from the 
 male to the female parent." Glasgow MedicalJournal, January, 
 1859. 
 
 K 
 
130 Essays on the 
 
 about tlie third or fourth month, of pregnancy, this 
 manifestation of it subsiding shortly after delivery, 
 and re-appearing on the woman again becoming 
 pregnant. This kind of proof, copious as it now is, 
 is, I think, peculiarly satisfactory. It indicates 
 freedom from contamination under circumstances 
 which seem peculiarly favourable to its occurrence, 
 the husband being sensibly affected by the poison, 
 and actual contamination under circumstances 
 seemingly peculiarly unfavourable, the husband 
 presenting no traces of the virus on any part of his 
 person. The inference appears unavoidable that 
 (in a large proportion of cases at least) impregna- 
 tion is the essential condition of the transmission 
 of the virus from the man to the woman ; that the 
 child begotten by the man and tainted by him, is the 
 proximate channel whereby the poison is conveyed 
 to the woman, the real transmitter of it from the 
 father to the mother. Small infinitesimally small 
 the amount may be of the virus in the father's 
 blood, yet enough to grow and to multiply itself 
 (after the manner of a ferment) in the tender and 
 plastic organism of the foetus inheriting it : enough 
 to taint it, and, as actively developed in it, to taint 
 the mother. 
 
 Mr. Savory, of St. Bartholomew's, may well be 
 said, I think, to have supplied " the keystone to the 
 arch " on which the proof of this view of maternal 
 contamination now rests. By a series of well-devised 
 and happily - executed experiments, he has suc- 
 ceeded in demonstrating what Magendie, Williams, 
 and other experimenters, had failed to show, that 
 
Foetus in Utero. 131 
 
 fluid matters may and do, in fact, pass from the 
 foetus to the mother through the placenta. His 
 experiments consisted in introducing a solution of 
 strychnia, of known strength, into the circulating 
 system of the foetus while still connected with the 
 mother by the cord. The result was, the death of 
 the mother, as well as of the foetus the death of 
 the mother taking place in a mode that clearly 
 implied the action of strychnia on her system, and 
 under circumstances that unequivocally indicated 
 the transmission of the poison along the placenta 
 from the foetus into her blood.* 
 
 Having, in this paper, a special object in view, 
 which is, to offer some remarks on Mr. Hey's case, 
 I content myself with this general statement as to 
 the kind of evidence we now have for the belief, that 
 the foetus is one channel, and in most cases, the 
 special channel, whereby secondary syphilis passes 
 from the male to the female parent : and I purposely 
 forbear adducing the details of the evidence supplied 
 by a not inconsiderable number of independent ob- 
 servers. But I should wish it to be understood that 
 I do not allege or maintain that the foetus is the 
 only channel of transmission. Dr. Ramsbotham, 
 we have seen, thinks that secondary syphilis is not 
 communicable directly, and this opinion he holds in 
 common with many. It would appear, however, 
 that it is thus directly communicable. Facts at 
 least there are which seem to indicate this. Still, the 
 
 * "An experimental inquiry into the effect upon the mother of 
 poisoning the foetus." Lancet, April 10 and 17, 1858. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Essays on the 
 
 weight of evidence is, I think, strongly in favour of 
 the presumption that the direct transmission of the 
 virus is, comparatively, of rare occurrence. Whether, 
 as thus transmissible, a solution of continuity of some 
 kind (ulceration, abrasion, fissure,) is essential 
 thereto, does not clearly appear ; probably it is. 
 But I am well satisfied of this, namely, that in as 
 far as the disease is directly communicable, it is 
 only as existing in a well-marked and palpable form, 
 i.e., when the husband is unmistakably labouring 
 under it. When existing in a very mild, or (as in 
 Mr. Key's case) in a latent form, I do not believe 
 it to be transmissible otherwise than through the 
 foetus. 
 
 How it is that it should be so readily conveyed to 
 the mother through this particular channel, one is 
 not called upon to say. It were enough to establish 
 it as a matter of fact. But a not unreasonable ex- 
 planation of it may be given. An amount of the 
 virus in any of the secretions of the man that might 
 be inadequate to hurt the full-grown woman, may, 
 as existing in his semen, be sufficiently potent to 
 taint the embryonic cell fertilized in her womb. 
 That constituent of the semen which, infinitesimal 
 as it is even in its totality, is adequate to the pro- 
 duction of a new being, and to the implanting in it 
 all the qualities, physical and moral, of the father, 
 may contain enough of the virus to bear fruit, 
 after its kind, in the foetus. In the delicate tissues 
 in the course of evolution within the embryo, and 
 in the " tourbillon continuel " of the vital changes 
 which for nine months the embryo is, in a very 
 
Foetus in Utero. 133 
 
 special sense, the seat of, tlie virus may find con- 
 ditions peculiarly favourable to its own growth and 
 increase ; and taking full effect first on the suscep- 
 tible organism of the foetus, it may there acquire 
 force enough and volume enough to affect and con- 
 taminate the mother also. " Behold how great a 
 matter a little fire kindle th." Whole hosts of 
 seminal animalcules, as numerous " as there were 
 men in the army of Xerxes," operating for weeks 
 and months and years together, might prove power- 
 less against the woman; and yet the one tainted 
 animalcule that enters the breach in the maturated 
 ovum in. which it disappears, may be mighty enough, 
 through the train of events which follow on its 
 lodgement there, to the spoiling of the mother. 
 This by the way, however, valeat quantum* The 
 fact remains, that secondary syphilis, rarely trans- 
 missible to the female directly, and then only (I 
 believe) when existing in the husband in an overt 
 form, is readily transmitted by the foetus, even 
 when existing in the father in a mild, or in a latent 
 and unsuspected form. 
 
 Perhaps, I may best convey to my readers what 
 I believe to be the true state of the case, if I say, 
 that, in the event of syphilis existing in a palpable 
 form in the husband, there are ninety-nine chances to 
 one in favour of the woman's remaining healthy, so 
 long as she remains unimpregnated, and ninety- 
 nine chances to one against her, on her falling with 
 child ; while, if the husband have the disease in a 
 latent form, she runs no risk at all, so long as she 
 escapes impregnation. 
 
134 Essays on the 
 
 I pass on now to offer some remarks on Mr. Hey's 
 case. 
 
 It was not with any view to endorse the theory 
 of the foetal transmission of secondary syphilis that 
 the case in question was given by Mr. Hey. This 
 theory he had probably no idea of : it was not in 
 his day a doctrine of the schools. His allusion to 
 the lady being " advanced to the seventh month of 
 pregnancy " comes in incidentally. Had he omitted 
 to mention it, or to speak of the child, the case 
 would have been valueless in relation to that theory. 
 Yet the reference to the pregnancy and to the child, 
 had no particular bearing on the object Mr. Hey had 
 in view. The pregnancy comes in as a fitting prelude 
 to what he had to say of the child > and the child as 
 supplying corroborative evidence, by its own syphi- 
 litic condition, of the syphilitic condition of the 
 mother, the whole value of the ease, in Mr. Hey's 
 view, lying in the marvellous escape of the husband 
 from re-infection. As the case stands, however, it 
 has a value of another sort, not contemplated by Mr. 
 Hey. 
 
 Nor is it as furnishing a decisive proof of this 
 doctrine of inoculation, that I am myself disposed 
 to attach value to the case. It will presently appear 
 that it is so far defective for such a purpose. It is 
 simply as a case (casually picked up, among others 
 like it, in the course of my reading,) which fits into 
 that doctrine, that I adduce it. I have no doubt, how- 
 ever, in my own mind, that it was a genuine instance 
 of foetal inoculation, though I ground nothing on it 
 in the way of proof. Looking at it in the clear 
 
Foetus in Utero. 135 
 
 light reflected on it by the facts by which the 
 doctrine is now decisively established, I cannot but 
 believe that the lady was contaminated by her own 
 child in utero. The case is of a piece with that of 
 many others, now on record, in which the evidence 
 of such contamination was clear and unequivocal. 
 The gentleman had once been affected with syphilis, 
 and was quite aware of the circumstance. But it 
 was before his marriage that he had it, and ere this 
 all traces of it had passed away. His connection 
 with his wife was fruitful ; she become pregnant, 
 and, in the seventh month, was found by Mr. Hey 
 to be " labouring under a confirmed lues," a con- 
 dition, the true nature of which was in due time 
 verified by the birth of a syphilitic infant. 
 
 One link, indeed, in the chain of evidence against 
 the fostus, is wanting. To make the proof against 
 it complete, it would require to be shown that the 
 mother kept free of all syphilitic affection until she 
 fell with child. Mr. Hey being dead, this missing 
 link cannot now be supplied. Perhaps, even at the 
 time he had the case in hand, itwould not have been 
 possible for him to supply it. For, it is conceivable 
 (indeed the narrative almost carries the supposition 
 on the face of it) that the marriage was a recent 
 one ; and it is quite possible that the impregnation 
 was contemporaneous with its celebration. If so, as 
 in any such case, there would be a plain source of 
 fallacy in the matter. But making due allowance 
 for this (and making no use, because of it, of the 
 case in the way of proof) there are, I think, fair 
 grounds for connecting the lady's contamination 
 
136 Essays on the 
 
 with impregnation. The manifestation of the 
 disease in her could not well have been of long 
 standing, before Mr. Hey was consulted. The 
 behaviour of the husband, as recorded by Mr. Hey, 
 makes it probable that he would not have allowed 
 his wife to remain four, or five, or six months ill 
 in the way he suspected, without seeking advice ; 
 and she was already seven months gone with child. 
 The probability is, that Mr. Hey was called in before 
 the disease had existed many weeks, in which case 
 we should have warrant enough for our inference. 
 
 In short, admitting again that there is no direct 
 or absolute proof of the contamination being the 
 result of impregnation, I cite the case as one that 
 affords a good illustration of the theory of inocula- 
 tion by and through the foetus. Believing, myself, 
 that the lady derived the infection from the child 
 in utero, I shall not quarrel with anyone who sees 
 the case in a different light. It was not given by 
 Mr. Hey with any view to the inoculation theory. 
 I look upon it as what the late Dr. Blunt of Cam- 
 bridge would have termed an " undesigned coinci- 
 dence." It fits, unintentionally, into the inocula- 
 tion theory ; and coming upon it (as I remarked 
 before) casually and accidentally, and looking at 
 it in the face of facts discovered since it was pub- 
 lished, I cannot help seeing in it a singularly 
 striking coincidence of the undesigned kind, in 
 relation to that theory. 
 
 One word as to another feature of this case 
 that, seemingly, of chief interest to Mr. Hey. 
 That the lady, with "her labia and anus beset 
 
Foetus in Utero. 137 
 
 with fissures and condylomata, and the vagina the 
 seat of a puriform discharge," should have failed 
 to re-infect her husband, is to Mr. Hey a matter of 
 surprise. " It may justly excite surprise (he re- 
 marks) that the gentleman in question should have 
 remained free from disease when his wife was in 
 the condition which has been described." And he 
 confesses himself unable, without calling in the aid 
 of a supposition which he says " wants probability," 
 to account for the circumstance. 
 
 This supposition Mr. Hey does not even indicate. 
 Doubtless, what he had in view was, that subse- 
 quently to the lady becoming diseased, or suffi- 
 ciently diseased to infect her husband per coitum, 
 the parties had abstained from all sexual inter- 
 course. This is not likely: it is a supposition 
 which " wants probability." Very likely, after the 
 gentleman's suspicions were, fully roused, there 
 may have been no intercourse between them ; but 
 prior to this if infection could have come to him 
 in that way, there was probably disease enough in 
 her genitals to infect him, and intercourse enough 
 to insure infection. This we may guess was the 
 " supposition " Mr. Hey had in his eye. Mr. Hey 
 marvels how it could be that he, tainted indeed, yet 
 so slightly as to be apparently free of taint with 
 no disease on his genitals, with none anywhere 
 except in his blood, and, peradventure, in his 
 secretions, should infect his wife per coitum ; while 
 she, on her part, notably diseased, should in that 
 way be incapable of infecting or re-infecting him. 
 
 Two remarks occur to me in connection with this 
 
138 Essays on the 
 
 point. The first is, that had Mr. Hey been aware of 
 the theory of inoculation, and a believer in it : had 
 he been alive to the possibility, and the probability, 
 of the lady having derived the infection through 
 the medium of the foetus ; and had he known the 
 rarity with which secondary syphilis, even in its 
 well-marked form, is ever transmitted from the 
 male to the female, except when impregnation 
 follows intercourse, he would probably have seen 
 no cause for surprise in the matter. As it was not 
 per coitum that the gentleman contaminated his 
 wife, so there could be nothing marvellous in the 
 latter not re-infecting him. 
 
 My next remark is, that, apart from any con- 
 sideration of this kind, there is room for doubt (to 
 say the least) whether in any case re-infection is 
 possible, possible at all events so long as one con- 
 tinues under the influence of the virus contracted 
 in the ordinary way. The gentleman in question 
 having once had syphilis, and being still tainted by 
 it, it is a fair presumption that in the circumstances 
 he was incapable of re-infection. 
 
 In bringing this paper to a close, I cannot forbear 
 adducing a case (hitherto unrecorded) bearing on 
 the theory of foetal inoculation, a case communi- 
 cated to my father by his colleague Dr. Dyce, 
 Professor of Midwifery in the University of Aber- 
 deen, and by him to me. It is that of a medical 
 man acquiring syphilis, in its primary form, on the 
 forefinger of the right hand, from a woman attended 
 by him in labour, and affected with the disease in 
 that form (the finger being abraded at the time) ; 
 
Feet us in Utero. 139 
 
 and subsequently contaminating his wife. A well- 
 marked chancre formed on the finger, and in dne 
 time constitutional symptoms followed. Some time 
 after, this gentleman's wife became the subject of 
 constitutional syphilis yet not until she fell with 
 child. A period of many months intervened between 
 the infection of the husband and the subsequent in- 
 fection of the wife, during all which time sexual 
 intercourse obtained, but no impregnation. Im- 
 pregnation eventually occurred, and the manifesta- 
 tion of syphilis in the lady (who had the disease 
 in its secondary form only) were coincident with 
 the manifestations of pregnancy. 
 
 I may just add, as to this case, on the authority 
 of my father, that the parties concerned were 
 intimately known to Dr. Dyce, and that he was 
 personally conversant with the whole facts; and 
 further that Dr. Dyce entertained no doubt what- 
 ever, that the lady derived the infection through 
 the medium of the foetus, and in no other way. 
 
 I have already stated, once and again, that I 
 merely adduce Mr. Hey's case as one that tallies 
 with the theory of inoculation through the foetus, 
 and that serves to illustrate that theory. What it 
 wants in the way of proof is the omission of all 
 reference to the precise time when the first mani- 
 festations of syphilis presented themselves in the 
 lady; she was advanced to the seventh month of 
 pregnancy when seen by Mr. Hey ; but she may 
 have conceived on the occasion of the first coitus 
 following her marriage ; her infection may have 
 been concurrent with the coitus ; and possibly 
 
140 Essays on the Foetus in Utero. 
 
 (although it does not seem likely) the disease may 
 have broken out in her long before Mr. Hey was 
 consulted. Dr. Dyce's case, however, is wanting in 
 nothing that it concerns us to know : In it, the 
 infection of the lady was coincident with her im- 
 pregnation; mere coitus carried on for months 
 together, was harmless to her. And the case may 
 confidently be cited as one of the kind, now suffi- 
 ciently numerous, that decisively establish the theory 
 in question. 
 
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