The readiness with which we may be deceived is shown by the fact that I myself nearly became a victim during the past year (1888). A friend of mine, in order to convince me of the transmission of mutilations, called my attention to a linear scar on his left ear, which extended from the upper margin of the helix for some distance upon the posterior part of the anthelix, giving it the appearance of a small, rather sharp ridge. The scar had been caused by a cut from a duelling sword, which the gentleman had received during his residence at the University. Strangely enough, the left ear of his daughter, who is five years old, exhibits a similar peculiarity. The posterior part of the anthelix forms a rather sharp and narrow ridge like that of the father, although the scar itself is wanting.
I must admit that I was at first rather puzzled by this fact, but the mystery was soon solved in a very simple manner. I asked the father to show me his right ear, and I then saw that this ear possessed a similar ridge on the posterior part of the anthelix. Only the scar was absent, which in the left ear brought the crest of the ridge into still greater prominence. The ridge was therefore only an individual peculiarity in the formation of the ear of the father,—a peculiarity which had been transmitted to one ear of the child. No transmission of the mutilation had taken place.
In the same manner, many of the so-called proofs of the transmission of mutilations would be shown, by a careful examination, to be deceptive. We must not expect to succeed in all of them, for in most cases the investigation cannot be completed, chiefly because the condition of the part in question in the ancestors is not known or is only known in an insufficient manner. This is the reason why fresh examples of such so-called proofs continue to appear from time to time,—proofs which do not admit of a searching criticism because something, and in most cases very much, is invariably wanting. But it will be admitted that even a very large number of incomplete proofs do not make a single complete one. On the other hand, it may be asserted that a single instance of coincidence between a mutilation in the parent and a malformation in the offspring, even if well established, would not constitute a proof of the transmission of mutilations. Not every post hoc is also a propter hoc. Nothing illustrates this better than a comparison between the ‘proofs’ which are even now brought forward in favour of the transmission of mutilations and the ‘proofs’ which supported the belief in the efficacy of so-called ‘maternal impressions’ during pregnancy, a belief which was universally maintained up to the middle of the present century. Many of those ‘proofs’ were simply old wives’ fables, and were based upon all kinds of subsequent inventions and alterations. But it cannot be denied that there are a few undoubtedly genuine observations upon cases in which some character in the child reminds us in a striking manner of a deep psychical impression by which the mother was strongly affected during pregnancy.
Thus a trustworthy person told me of the following case. A well-known medical authority cut his leg above the ankle with a knife: his wife was present at the time and was much frightened. She was then in the third month of pregnancy: the child when born was found to have an unusual mark upon the same place above the ankle. People almost forget nowadays the tenacity with which the idea of maternal impressions was kept up until the middle of this century; but it is only necessary to read the received German text-book on physiology of fifty years ago, viz. that of Burdach, in order to be convinced of the accuracy of this statement. Not only does Burdach give a number of ‘conclusive’ cases in man and even in animals (cows and deer), but he also attempts to construct a theoretical explanation of the supposed process. This is undertaken in the following manner,—‘Imagination influences the function of organs;’ but the function of the embryo is the ‘tendency towards development, and hence the influence [of maternal imagination] can make itself felt only as variations in the mode of development.’ Thus by exchanging the conception of function for that of the development of organs, Burdach comes to the conclusion that ‘homologous organs of the mother and the embryo are in such connexion’ that when the former are disturbed a corresponding ‘change in the formation of the latter may arise.’
It seems to be not without value for the appreciation of the questions with which we are dealing to remember that the idea of ‘maternal impressions’ was only comparatively recently believed to be a scientific theory, and that the proofs in support of it were brought forward in form and language as scientific proofs. In Burdach’s book we even meet with detailed ‘proofs’ that violent mental shocks produced by maternal impressions may not only exercise their influence upon one but even upon several children born successively, although with diminishing strength. ‘A young wife received a shock during her first pregnancy upon seeing a child with a hare-lip, and she was constantly haunted with the idea that her child might have the same malformation. She was delivered of a child with a typical hare-lip: her next child had an upper lip with a less-marked cleft; while the third possessed a red mark instead of a cleft.’
Now what can be said about such ‘proofs’? We may probably rightly conjecture that Burdach, who was in other respects a clever physiologist, was in this subject somewhat credulous: but there are also instances about which there is not the slightest doubt. I may remind the reader of a case which has been told by no other than the celebrated embryologist, Carl Ernst von Baer[[305]].
‘A lady was very much upset by a fire, which was visible at a distance, because she believed that it was in her native place. As the latter was seven German miles distant, the impression had lasted a long time before it was possible to receive any certain intelligence, and this long delay affected the mind of the lady so greatly, that for some time afterwards she said that she constantly saw the flames before her eyes. Two or three months afterwards she was delivered of a daughter who had a red patch on the forehead in the form of a flame. This patch did not disappear until the child was seven years old.’ Von Baer added, ‘I mention this case because I am well acquainted with it, for the lady was my own sister, and because she complained of seeing flames before her eyes before the birth of the child, and did not invent it afterwards as the “cause” of the strange appearance.’
Here then we have a case which is absolutely certain. Von Baer’s name is a guarantee for absolute accuracy. Why then has science, in spite of this, rejected the whole idea of the efficacy of ‘maternal impressions’ ever since the appearance of the treatises by Bergmann and Leuckart[[306]]?
Science has rejected this idea for many and conclusive reasons, all of which I am not going to repeat here. In the first place, because our maturer knowledge of the physiology of the body shows that such a causal connexion between the peculiar characters of the child and, if I may say so, the corresponding psychical impressions of the mother, is a supposition which cannot be admitted; but also and chiefly because a single coincidence of an idea of the mother with an abnormality in the child does not form the proof of a causal connexion between the two phenomena.
I do not doubt that among the many thousands of present and past students in German Universities, whose faces are covered with scars, there may be one with a son who exhibits a birth-mark on the spot where the father possesses a scar. All sorts of birth-marks occur, and why should they not sometimes have the appearance of a scar? Such a case, if it occurred, would be acceptable to the adherents of the theory of the transmission of acquired characters; it would in their opinion completely upset the views of their opponents.