destroying the health of their
offspring, and subjecting them to all the miseries of nervous disease,
melancholy, or madness.

There is another consideration that should be noticed here: it is this.
Even where no hereditary defect exists, the state of the mother during
pregnancy has an influence on the mental character and health of the
offspring, of which even _few parents_ have any adequate conception. "It
is often in the maternal womb that we are to look for the true cause not
only of imbecility, but of the different kinds of mania. During the
agitated periods of the French Revolution, many ladies then pregnant,
and whose minds were kept constantly on the stretch by the anxiety and
alarm inseparable from the epoch in which they lived, and whose nervous
systems were thereby rendered irritable in the highest degree compatible
with sanity, were afterward delivered of infants whose brains and
nervous systems had been affected to such a degree by the state of their
parent, that, in future life, as children they were subject to spasms,
convulsions, and other nervous affections, and in youth to imbecility or
madness, almost without any exciting cause."[22]

[22] The testimony of M. Esquirol, whose talent, general accuracy, and
extensive experience give great weight to all his well-considered
opinions, quoted, also, and confirmed by the Physician Extraordinary to
the Queen in Scotland, and consulting Physician to the King and Queen of
the Belgians.

The same eminent author has recorded the following fact, illustrating
the extent to which the temporary state of the mother, during gestation,
may influence the _whole future life of the child_. A pregnant woman,
otherwise healthy, was greatly alarmed and terrified by the threats of
her husband when in a state of intoxication. She was afterward
delivered, at the proper time, of a very delicate child, which was so
much affected by its mother's agitation that, up to the age of eighteen,
it continued subject to panic terrors, and then became completely
maniacal.

Many illustrative instances might be quoted from medical writers in this
and other countries. The author might also refer to cases that have
fallen under his own observation.

Dr. Caldwell, too, an able and philanthropic advocate of an improved
system of physical, intellectual, and moral education in this country,
is very urgent in enforcing rational care, during the period of
ges