An exposition of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy : the period of human gestation, and the signs of delivery / By W.F. Montgomery.

  • Montgomery, W. F. (William Fetherston Haugh), 1797-1859.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An exposition of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy : the period of human gestation, and the signs of delivery / By W.F. Montgomery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    at least, be very likely to miscarry; and even though they may not be themselves susceptible of the disease, the unborn infant may suffer from it, as has been proved with regard to small-pox.1 Neither should they be permitted, if possible, to see disgusting objects, for although no injury may be thereby done to the child, their minds are apt to remain much troubled with anticipations of some deformity or disfigurement likely to ensue. Now in reference to this matter, but without meaning in any way to advocate or countenance either the indiscriminate doctrine of effects produced by the mother's imagination, or the ridiculously absurd fabrications by which it has been attempted to maintain it, I cannot help thinking it quite consistent will reason, and the present state of our knowledge, to believe that a very powerful impression on the mother's mind or nervous system may injuriously affect the foetus, and it will at least be always safe and prudent to act on such a presumption ; for although, to use the words of Morgagni,2 I do not approve these things, (that is. the absurd stories,) there are cases wherein it seems to me to be very hard to depart totally and altogether from that opinion which is common to the greatest met].3 Iti a case already quoted from this celebrated writer, a mental impression was quickly followed by the death of the child; and if such an influence can thus destroy its life, it is surely not unreasonable to admit, that it may have the power of modifying organisation.4 An instance of this kind occurred under my own observation about two years ago, so remarkable, that I trust I shall be excused if I think it presents something more than a mere, though striking coincidence. A lady, pregnant for the first lime, to whom 1 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 seeing 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 commiseration. I afterwards attended this lady in her lying-in, and her child, which was born a month before its time, and lived 1 See cases by Jenner, Med. Chir. Trans, vol. i. p. 269; a very remarkable one by Mead, in which a certain woman who had formerly had the small- pox, and was now near her reckoning, attended her husband in the distemper. She went her full time, and was delivered of a dead child. It may be need- less to observe that she did not catch it on this occasion, but the dead body of the infant was a horrid sight, being all over covered with the pustules; a manifest sign that it died of the disease before it was brought into the world. Works, edit. 1767, p. 253. 2 Epist. xlviii. art. 51. 8 He refers to Boerhaave, Praelect. ad Instit. § 694. and to Van Swieten. 4 A celebrated writer of the present day, Esquirol, is led from obser- vation and experience to refer one of the species of congenital predisposition to insanity, to the impression of terror on the mind of the mother while preg- nant.