the influence their minds will have upon the formation of the child
long after its form has been established.

Incidents in the life of a prospective mother are in point of fact
equally inert so far as their influence upon development is
concerned, no matter whether they occur during the earlier or later
part of pregnancy. There is never any anatomical means by which
maternal impressions could be conveyed to the embryo. Such an
influence would have to be exerted through the placenta; and that is
impossible. There are no nerves in the placenta to carry impulses
from the mother to the child. Even the blood streams of the two
beings are kept apart; and though it is unheard of that the blood
should carry nerve impulses, if that happened to be the case, it
could not prove effective here, for the blood of the mother does not
enter the child. It is nourished by food which passes from the
mother's blood, to be sure, but there is no more reason to expect
this nutriment to exert an hereditary influence than there is to
expect an infant to grow to resemble the cow with the milk of which
it is fed. With these two possibilities eliminated, no path can be
imagined by which impulses might travel from the mother to the
embryo.

Scientific investigation has brought to light these facts, as it has
also taught the real causation of the disfigurement once attributed
to the mother's mind. Departures from the usual form of the body
occur during the earliest days of pregnancy and arise in consequence
of some irregularity in the process which molds the body-form from a
simple spherical mass of cells. Why irregularities sometimes occur is
not altogether clear; except in so far as it has been determined that
the fault lies within the embryo itself. Whenever these defects are