The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother Part 15

_Prevention._--The eminent pract.i.tioner, Dr. Tilt, says, 'The way to prevent miscarriage is to lead a quiet life, particularly during those days of each successive month when, under other circ.u.mstances, the woman would menstruate; and to abstain during those days not only from long walks and parties, but also from s.e.xual intercourse.'

It is especially desirable to avoid a miscarriage in the first pregnancy, for fear that the habit of miscarrying shall then be set up, which it will be very difficult to eradicate. Therefore newly-married women should carefully avoid all causes which are known to induce the premature expulsion of the child. If it should take place in spite of all precautions, extraordinary care should be exercised in the subsequent pregnancy, to prevent its recurrence. Professor Bedford of New York has said he has found that an excellent expedient in such cases is, as soon as pregnancy is known to exist, 'to interdict s.e.xual intercourse until after the fifth month; for if the pregnancy pa.s.s beyond this period, the chances of miscarriage will be much diminished.'

If the _symptoms of miscarriage_, which may be expressed in the two words _pain_ and _flooding_, should make their appearance, the doctor ought at once to be sent for, the wife awaiting his arrival in a rec.u.mbent position. He may even then be able to avert the impending danger. At any rate, his services are as necessary, and often even more so, as in a labor at full term.

MOTHER'S MARKS.

It is a popular belief that the imagination of the mother affects the child in the womb. It is a.s.serted that infants are often born with various marks and deformities corresponding in character with objects which had made a vivid impression on the maternal mind during pregnancy.

This is a subject of great practical interest. We shall therefore give it the careful attention which it deserves.

We have already discussed the operation of the laws of inheritance. It was then stated that the whole story of maternal influence had not been told--that the mother could communicate qualities she never possessed.

The potency of imagination at the time of conception over the child has been mentioned. It is now our design to consider its effects, during the period of pregnancy, upon the physical structure and the mental attributes of the offspring. We shall have occasion hereafter, in speaking of nursing, to ill.u.s.trate the manner in which the child may be affected by maternal impressions acting through the mother's milk. What can be more wonderful than this intimate union between the mother and her child? It is only equaled by that mysterious influence of the husband over the wife, by which he so impresses her system that she often comes in time to resemble him both in mental and physical characteristics, and even transmits his peculiarities to her children by a second marriage. Father, mother, and child are one.

We wish here to premise that our remarks will be based upon the conclusions of skilled and scientific observers only, whose position and experience no medical man will question. All the instances to be related are given upon unimpeachable authority. They are not the narrations of ignorant, credulous people; they are all fully vouched for. We record here, as elsewhere, only the sober utterances of science. The great importance and utility of an acquaintance with them will be patent to every intelligent man and woman.

The effect of the mind upon the body is well known. Strong, long-continued mental emotion may induce or cure disease. Heart disease may be produced by a morbid direction of the thoughts to that organ.

Warts disappear under the operation of a strong belief in the efficacy of some nonsensical application. In olden time, scrofula, or the 'king's evil', was cured by the touch of the king. The mind of the patient, of course, accomplished the cure. Under the influence of profound mental emotion, the hair of the beautiful Marie Antoinette became white in a short time. During the solitary voyage of Madame Condamine down the wild and lonely Amazon, a similar change took place. Many other instances might be adduced; but those given are sufficient to show that strong and persistent mental impressions will exert a mysterious transforming power over the body. These facts will pave the way to the consideration of corresponding effects, through the mother's mind, upon the development of the unborn child, forming a part of herself _in utero._

_Influence of mind of mother on form and color of infant._--There are numerous facts on record which prove that _habitual_, long-continued mental conditions of the mother at an early period of pregnancy, induce deformity or other abnormal development of the infant.

Professor William A. Hammond of New York relates the following striking case, which occurred in his own experience, and which scarcely admits of a doubt as to the influence of the maternal mind over the physical structure of the ftus.

A lady in the third month of her pregnancy was very much horrified by her husband being brought home one evening with a severe wound of the face, from which the blood was streaming. The shock to her was so great that she fainted, and subsequently had a hysterical attack, during which she was under Dr. Hammond's care. Soon after her recovery she told him that she was afraid her child would be affected in some way, and that even then she could not get rid of the impression the sight of her husband's b.l.o.o.d.y face had made upon her. In due time the child, a girl, was born. She had a dark red mark upon the face, corresponding in situation and extent with that which had been upon her father's face.

She also proved to be idiotic.

Professor Dalton of New York states that the wife of the janitor of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of that city, during her pregnancy, dreamed that she saw a man who had lost a part of the ear. The dream made a great impression upon her mind, and she mentioned it to her husband. When her child was born, a portion of one ear was deficient, and the organ was exactly like the defective ear she had seen in her dream. When Professor Dalton was lecturing upon the development of the ftus as affected by the mind of the mother, the janitor called his attention to the foregoing instance. The ear looks exactly as if a portion had been cut off with a sharp knife.

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

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

All the above instances have been those of the effects of persistent mental emotion. But it is also true that _violent and sudden emotion_ in the mother leaves sometimes its impress upon the unborn infant, although it may be quickly forgotten.

It is related on good authority that a lady, who during her pregnancy was struck with the unpleasant view of leeches applied to a relative's foot, gave birth to a child with the mark of a leech coiled up in the act of suction on the intended spot.

Dr. Delacoux of Paris says that, in the month of January 1825, he was called to attend a woman in the village of Batignoles, near Paris, who the evening before had been delivered of a six months' ftus, horribly deformed. The upper lip was in a confused ma.s.s with the jaw and the gums, and the right leg was amputated at the middle, the stump having the form of a cone. The mother of this being, who was a cook, one morning, about the third month of her pregnancy, on entering the house where she was employed, was seized with horror at the sight of a porter with a hare-lip and an amputated leg.

At a meeting of the Society of Physicians at Berlin, in August 1868, Herr Dupre stated that a woman saw, in the first weeks of her third pregnancy, a boy with a hare-lip; and not only was the child she then carried born with a frightful hare-lip, but also three children subsequently. Another one, a woman in the fifth week of pregnancy, saw a sheep wounded, and with its bowels protruding. She was greatly shocked, and did not recover her composure for several days. She was delivered at term of a child, in other respects well developed, but lacking the walls of the abdomen.

Many remarkable instances have been collected of the power of _imagination_ over the unborn offspring.

Ambrose Pare, the ill.u.s.trious French surgeon of the sixteenth century, in one of his treatises devotes a chapter to the subject of 'monsters which take their cause and shape from imagination,' and was evidently a strong believer in this influence.

A black child is generally believed to have been born to Marie Therese, the wife of Louis XIV., in consequence of a little negro page in her service having started from a hiding-place and stumbled over her dress early in her pregnancy. This child was educated at the convent of Moret, near Fontainebleau, where she took the veil, and where, till the shock of the Revolution, her portrait was shown.

Examples are given by authors of the force of _desires_ in causing deformities in infants, and the formation upon them of fruits, such as apples, pears, grapes, and others, which the mother may have longed for.

The following is related upon excellent medical authority:--A woman gave birth to a child with a large cl.u.s.ter of globular tumours growing from the tongue, and preventing the closure of the mouth, in color, shape, and size exactly resembling our common grapes; and with a red excrescence from the chest, as exactly resembling in figure and appearance a turkey's wattles. On being questioned before the child was shown to her, she answered, that while pregnant she had seen some grapes, longed intensely for them, and constantly thought of them; and that she was also once attacked and much alarmed by a turkey-c.o.c.k.

Dr. Demangeon of Paris quotes, in his work on the Imagination, the _Journal de Verdun_, as mentioning the case of a child, born at Blois, in the eyes of which the face of a watch was distinctly seen. The image was situated around the pupil, and the figures representing the hours were plainly perceived. The mother had experienced a strong desire to see a watch while she was pregnant with this child.

Professor Dalton says, in his _Human Physiology_, that 'there is now little room for doubt that various deformities and deficiencies of the ftus, conformably to the popular belief, do really originate in certain cases from nervous impressions, such as disgust, fear, or anger, experienced by the mother.' We will now consider the

_Influence of the mind of the mother on the mind of the infant_; which subject we have not yet touched upon, having confined ourselves to the influence of the maternal mind over the form and color of the unborn child. It will not be necessary to ill.u.s.trate at length this branch of our topic. Instances are sufficiently common and well known. Dr. Seguin of New York, in his work on Idiocy, gives several cases in which there was reason to believe that fright, anxiety, or other emotions in the mother, had produced idiocy in the offspring. As he remarks, 'Impressions will sometimes reach the ftus in its recess, cut off its legs or arms, or inflict large flesh wounds before birth,--inexplicable as well as indisputable facts, from which we surmise that idiocy holds unknown though certain relations to maternal impressions.'

We have given many strong cases and most excellent authority for the doctrine that the _purely mental_ influence of the mother may produce bodily and mental changes in the unborn infant. But the child is also affected by _physical impressions_ made upon the mother.

Dr. Russegger reports that a woman, who had already borne four healthy children, was, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, bitten in the right calf by a dog. The author saw the wound made by the animal's teeth, which wound consisted of three small triangular depressions, by two of which the skin was only slightly ruffled; a slight appearance of blood was perceptible in the third. The woman was at the moment of the accident somewhat alarmed, but neither then nor afterwards had any fear that her ftus would be affected by the occurrence. Ten weeks after she was bitten, the woman bore a healthy child, which, however, to the surprise of every person, had three marks corresponding in size and appearance to those caused by the dog's teeth in the mother's leg, and consisting, like those, of one large and two smaller impressions. The two latter, which were pale, disappeared in five weeks; the larger one had also become less, and was not so deep colored as it was at birth. At the time of writing, the child was four months old.

Dr. S. P. Crawford of Greenville, Tennessee, reports in a recent number of the _Nashville Journal of Medicine_, the following sad case:--A lady, in the last stage of pregnancy, was burned by the explosion of a kerosene-oil can. She lived twelve hours after the accident. The face, legs, arms, and abdomen were badly burned. The movements of the child were felt three or four hours after the accident. A short time before the death of the mother she gave birth to the child at full maturity, but still-born. It bore the mark of the fire corresponding to that of the mother. Its legs, arms, and abdomen were completely blistered, having all the appearance of a recent burn.

These instances of a decided influence exerted upon the body and mind of the child in the womb, by physical and mental impressions made upon the mother, might be doubled or trebled. They are as numerous as they are wonderful. Physiologists of the present day do not hesitate to admit the existence of the influence we have been discussing. Reason also comes to the support of facts, to demonstrate and establish its reality. For, if a sudden and powerful emotion of the mind can so disturb the stomach and heart as to cause vomiting and fainting, is it not probable that it can affect the womb and the impressible being within it? Pregnancy is a function of the woman as much as digestion or pulsation of the heart; and if the latter are controlled by moral and mental impressions, why should not the former be also?

_In what manner does this influence of the maternal mind act?_--Through the blood of the mother. Only a very delicate membrane separates the vital fluid of the mother from that of the infant in her womb. There is a constant interchange of the blood in its body with that in hers through this exceedingly thin membrane; and thus all nervous impressions which have produced an alteration of either a temporary or permanent character in the circulating fluid of the mother, are communicated to the child. Since the mother, as has been shown, can transmit through her blood certain characteristics of mind and body not her own,--for instance, a disease peculiar to a male from her father to her son, or the physical and mental traits of her first husband to the children by her second,--it does not seem at all strange that she should through this same medium, her blood, impart other peculiarities which have made a strong impression upon her mind. Anatomy and physiology therefore fully explain and account for this seemingly mysterious influence.

The view here stated, and indorsed by modern science, is one which ought to have great weight with the mother, her relatives and friends. The _practical conclusion_ which it suggests is, that as during pregnancy there is unusual susceptibility to mental impressions, and as these impressions may operate on the fragile structure of the unborn being, this tendency should be well considered and constantly remembered, not only by the woman herself, but by all those who a.s.sociate or are thrown in contact with her. Upon the care displayed in the management of the corporeal and mental health of the mother during the whole period of pregnancy, the ultimate const.i.tution of the offspring greatly depends.

All the surroundings and employments of the pregnant woman should be such as conduce to cheerfulness and equanimity. Above all, she should avoid the presence of disagreeable and unsightly objects. Vivid and unpleasant impressions should be removed as soon as possible by quiet diversion of the mind. All causes of excitement should be carefully guarded against.

In leaving the subject of maternal impressions, we will call attention to the manifest difference in extent and degree between the influence of the father and that of the mother over the offspring. That of the father ceases with impregnation. That of the mother continues during the whole term of pregnancy, and, as we shall shortly see, even during that of nursing.

EDUCATION OF THE CHILD IN THE WOMB.

The outlines drawn by the artist Flaxman are esteemed the most perfect and graceful in existence. From earliest childhood he manifested a delight in drawing. His mother, a woman of refined and artistic tastes, used to relate that for months previous to his birth she spent hours daily studying engravings, and fixing in her memory the most beautiful proportions of the human figure as portrayed by masters. She was convinced that the genius of her son was the fruit of her own self-culture. What a charming idea is this! What an incentive to those about to become mothers, to cultivate refinement, high thoughts, pure emotions, elevated sentiments! Thus they endow their children with what no after education can give them.

The plastic brain of the ftus is prompt to receive all impressions. It retains them, and they become the characteristics of the child and the man. Low spirits, violent pa.s.sions, irritability, frivolity, in the pregnant woman, leave indelible marks on the unborn child. So do their contraries; and thus it becomes of the utmost moment that during this period all that is cheerful, inspiring, and elevating should surround the woman. Such emotions educate the child: they form its disposition, they shape its faculties, they create its mental and intellectual traits. Of all education, this is the most momentous.

CAN A WOMAN BECOME AGAIN PREGNANT DURING PREGNANCY?

Can a woman during pregnancy conceive, and add a second and younger child to that already in the womb?

It is not uncommon in the canine race for a mother to give birth at the same time to dogs of different species, showing conclusively the possibility, in these animals, of one conception closely following another. So a mare has been known to produce within a quarter of an hour, first a horse, and then a mule. And in the human race cases are on record in which women have had twins, of which the one was white and the other colored, in consequence of intercourse on the same day with men of those two races. Dr. Henry relates that in Brazil a Creole woman, a native, brought into the world at one birth three children of three different colors,--white, brown, and black,--each child exhibiting the features peculiar to the respective races.

In all such instances the two conceptions followed each other very rapidly, the offspring arriving at maturity together, and being born at the same accouchement. But more curious and wonderful examples of second and concurrent pregnancies have been published than these--as, for instance, those in which a child bearing all the attributes of a ftus at full term is born two, three, four, and even five, months after the first, which appeared also to have been born at full term. Marie Anne Bigaud, aged thirty-seven, gave birth, April 30, 1748, to a living boy at full term, and on the ensuing September 16, to a living girl, which was recognised, by the size and well-developed condition of its body and limbs, to have been also carried until full term. This fact was observed by Professor Eisenman, and by Leriche, surgeon-major of the military hospital of Strasbourg. It will be noticed that there was an interval of four and a half months between the two accouchements. The first child lived two and a half months, and the second a year. In this instance there was not a double womb, as might perhaps be supposed, for after the mother's death an examination proved that the uterus was single.

Another case of this kind is the following:--Benoite Franquet of Lyons brought into the world a girl on January 20, 1780, and five months and six days afterwards a second girl, also apparently at term, and well nourished. Two years later these two children were presented, with their certificates of baptism, to two notaries of Lyons, MM. Caillot and Desurgey, in order that the fact might be placed on record and vouched for, because of its value in legal medicine.

The number of the entirely authenticated cases now known of the birth of fully developed children within from two to five months of each other, can leave no doubt as to the possibility of such an occurrence. The only question which remains is in regard to the periods of conception. Are the two children in such cases twins, conceived at the same time, but the growth of the last-born so r.e.t.a.r.ded that it did not arrive at maturity until a number of months after its fellow? or, Has a second conception taken place at an interval of several months after the first?

If this latter view be true, then, in the instance of Marie Anne Bigaud, above related, the second child must have been conceived after the first had quickened. Then, also, two children of different ages, the offspring of different fathers, may exist in the womb at the same time. The weight of scientific observation and authority has now established the fact that, in very rare instances, a second conception may take place during pregnancy. It must not be understood as necessarily following from this statement, that when two children are born at the same time,--one fully developed, and the other small and apparently prematurely born,--the two were conceived at different times. The smaller may have been blighted and its growth hindered by the same causes which bring about such effects in cases of single births of incompletely developed children. A similar supposition may account for the birth of a second child within a month or two after the first, for the first may have been prematurely born, and the second carried to full term. But no such supposition can explain the cases referred to, and others which might be mentioned, in which the interval has been five or six months, each child presenting every indication of perfect maturity. The only explanation possible in such instances, which, as has been said, are well authenticated, although few in number, is, that a second pregnancy has occurred during the first.

The above facts would seem sufficiently wonderful. There are others, however, of the same nature still more so. In some instances, the product of the second conception, instead of developing independently of the first, has become attached to it, and the phenomenon has been presented of the growth of a child within a child--a ftus within a ftus. Such a singular occurrence has been lately recorded in a German journal. A correspondent of the _Dantzic Gazette_ states that on Sunday, February 1, 1869, at Schliewen, near Dirschau, 'a young and blooming shepherd's wife was delivered of a girl, otherwise sound, but having on the lower part of her back, between the hips, a swelling as big as two good-sized fists, through the walls of which a well-developed ftus may be felt. Its limbs indicate a growth of from five to six months, and its movements are very lively. The father called in the health commissioner, Dr. Preuss, from Dirschau, and begged him to remove the swelling together with the ftus. The doctor, however, after a careful examination, declared that there was a possibility in this extraordinary case of the child within the swelling coming to fruition. Its existence and active motions were palpable to all present. No physician could be justified in destroying this marvelous being. It ought rather to be protected and cherished. The new-born girl, notwithstanding her strange burden, is of unusual strength and beauty, and takes the breast very cheerfully.'

We find something further in regard to this singular birth in the _Weser Zeitung_ of February 20, 1869. It quotes from the _Dantzic Gazette_ some remarks by the health commissioner, Dr. Preuss of Dirschau, in which the doctor declares the facts contained in the report given above to be correct. He was summoned on the 1st of February to the child, and saw the vigorous movements, and felt the members of a ftus within the swelling, as described. It was evidently a double creation. The case thus far, though rare, is not unique. 'But what is novel, and hitherto perfectly unnoticed in medical literature, is the fact that not only the girl, which has been carried its full term, is alive to-day, but the ftus within the swelling has also, in the eleven days after birth, further developed, and palpably increased in size. The swelling is now four and a half inches long, three and a half inches wide, and high and pear-shaped; the head lies underneath on the left, the body towards the right.'

Further particulars and the latest intelligence we have concerning the progress of this case are to the effect that the child was brought by special request before the Natural History Society of Dantzic, and thence the mother went to Berlin for medical advice.