dness. {302}

2. HEREDITARY EFFECTS.--Those who are born to become insane do not
necessarily spring from insane parents, or from any ancestry having any
apparent taint of lunacy in their blood, but they do receive from their
progenitors certain impressions upon their mental and moral, as well as
their physical beings, which impressions, like an iron mould, fix and shape
their subsequent destinies. Hysteria in the mother may develop insanity in
the child, while drunkenness in the father may impel epilepsy, or mania, in
the son. Ungoverned passions in the parents may unloose the furies of
unrestrained madness in the minds of their children, and the bad treatment
of the wife may produce sickly or weak-minded children.

3. THE INFLUENCE OF PREDOMINANT PASSION may be transmitted from the parent
to the child, just as surely as similarity of looks. It has been truly said
that "the faculties which predominate in power and activity in the parents,
when the organic existence of the child commences, determine its future
mental disposition." A bad mental condition of the mother may produce
serious defects upon her unborn child.

4. THE SINGULAR EFFECTS produced on the unborn child by the sudden mental
emotions of the mother are remarkable examples of a kind of electrotyping
on the sensitive surfaces of living forms. It is doubtless true that the
mind's action in such cases may increase or diminish the molecular deposits
in the several portions of the system. The precise place which each
separate particle assumes in the new organic structure may be determined by
the influence of thought or feeling. Perfect love and perfect harmony
should exist between wife and husband during this vital period.

5. AN ILLUSTRATION.--If a sudden and powerful emotion of a woman's mind
exerts such an influence upon her stomach as to excite vomiting, and upon
her heart as almost to arrest its motion and induce fainting, can we
believe that it will have no effect upon her womb and the fragile being
contained within it? Facts and reason then, alike demonstrate the reality
of the influence, and much practical advantage would result to both parent
and child, were the conditions and extent of its operations better
understood.

6. PREGNANT WOMEN should not be exposed to causes likely to distress or
otherwise strongly impress their minds. A consistent life with worthy
objects constantly kept in mind should be the aim and purpose of every
expectant mother. {