On the fœtus in utero, as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism : and on mental stakes in either parent, as influencing the nutrition and development of the offspring / by Alexander Harvey.

Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.

Date:: 1850

Credit: On the fœtus in utero, as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism : and on mental stakes in either parent, as influencing the nutrition and development of the offspring / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$the races specified by Strzelecki, or that the Negro race is wholly exempt from it. It is conceivable, in regard to the fonner, as Strze- lecki liimself frankly allows to me, that there may be exceptions to it, though he has met with none; and, in regard to the latter, that it may be in some degree subject to it. It is well known, indeed, that in the West India islands, under the system of slavery at least, the black population tends rather to diminish than increase, and that it can only be adequately maintained by continual importations from Africa. Whether that diminution is in any degree owing to the opera- tion of Strzelecki's law, it is perhaps at present impossible to say.^ (4.) In my former paper, I represent Mr M'Gillivray as holding that there is a direct vascular connection, and a continuous inter- change of blood, between the foetus in utero and its mother, and also as regarding that sort of connection to be essential to the validity of his theory of inoculation. Mr M'Gillivray, however, as I have since discovered, does not hold any such opinion, nor does he rest his theory on so insecure a basis as I fancied. His ideas regarding the structure of the placenta, and the connection between the mother and foetus, appear, in fact, to be substantially those sug- gested by the late Dr John Eeid and others, and now commonly received. The mistake committed by me arose from some expressions dropt by Mr M'Gillivray in the course of his paper, taken in connection with a case given by him, and showing an empty state of the blood- vessels of a foetal calf, whose mother had died of a hemon'hage from the lungs, of three days' continuance. As this case seems to me to afford a stronger support to his theory than I at first imagined, and to be besides (though not unique^) a valuable contribution to our pondent almost laughs me to scorn for giving heed to that inference. On the other hand, a writer in the Edinburgh Review (No. CLXXXIV., p. 456, foot note), refen'ing to my former paper, suggests that the excellent and intelligent Strzelecki should excuse me for treating it as nothing more than an hypothesis for the present! Considering, however, on the one hand, the astounding nature of the inference, and, on the other, the high character of Strzelecki as a philosophic observer, as well as the extent of his observations (some hundred instances of the phenomenon without a single exception), I humbly submit that, until the inference shall be either fully established or shown to be fallacious, the proper course in regard to it is, to keep the mean between the two extremes of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting it,—or (in the words of the wise and good Bishop But- ler) to keep in the middle state of mind, between a full satisfaction of the truth of it, and a satisfaction of the contrary —this middle state of mind con- sisting in a serious apprehension that it may be true, joined with doubt whether it be so.—{Analogy, Part II., Conclusion.) ^ It may be mentioned, in connection with this, that it has been stated to me, though not on sufficient authority, in regard to the mare, that, though not rendered sterile to the horse, she does not readily conceive by him after breed- ing with the ass, with whom she continues very fertile. ' There is a case, by Mevy, in the Memoires de I'Academie Royale des Sciences, 1708. But this case is too briefly recorded to be of any physiological$