(1) That there is, before birth, no connection between mother and child, by which impressions on the mother's mind or body could be transmitted to the child's mind or body. (2) That in most cases the marks or defects whose origin is attributed to maternal impression, must necessarily have been complete long before the incident occurred which the mother, after the child's birth, ascribes as the cause. (3) That these phenomena usually do not occur when they are, and by hypothesis ought to be, expected. The explanations are found after the event, and that is regarded as causation which is really coincidence. Pre-natal care as a euthenic measure is of course not only legitimate but urgent. The embryo derives its entire nourishment from the mother; and its development depends wholly on its supply of nourishment. Anything which affects the supply of nourishment will affect the embryo in a general, not a particular way. If the mother's mental and physical condition be good, the supply of nourishment to the embryo is likely to be good, and development will be normal. If, on the other hand, the mother is constantly harassed by fear or hatred, her physical health will suffer, she will be unable properly to nourish her developing offspring, and it may be its poor physical condition when born, indicates this. Further, if the mother experiences a great mental or physical shock, it may so upset her health that her child is not properly nourished, its development is arrested, mentally as well as physically, and it is born defective. H. H. Goddard, for example, tells[28] of a high-grade imbecile in the Training School at Vineland, N. J. "Nancy belongs to a thoroughly normal, respectable family. There is nothing to account for the condition unless one accepts the mother's theory. While it sounds somewhat like the discarded theory of maternal impression, yet it is not impossible that the fright and shock which the mother received may have interfered with the nutrition of the unborn child and resulted in the mental defect. The story in brief is as follows. Shortly before this child was born, the mother was compelled to take care of a sister-in-law who was in a similar condition and very ill with convulsions. Our child's mother was many times frightened severely as her sister-in-law was quite out of her mind." It is easily understandable that any event which makes such an impression on the mother as to affect her health, might so disturb the normal functioning of her body that her child would be badly nourished, or even poisoned. Such facts undoubtedly form the basis on which the airy fabric of prenatal culture was reared by those who lived before the days of scientific biology.