The following case came under my own immediate observation. The grandfather was in the habit of sitting in front of the fire with fingers locked together twirling the thumbs in one direction, and then occasionally knocking the thumb nails together. Two of his three sons inherited this habit; the third brother had the habit of biting his nails when in a fit of abstraction. The nephew of the last has a similar habit under the like conditions. The children of this nephew have in two instances shown a tendency to pick at the nails when in an unconscious state, from acute disease. The third child has a periodical tendency to do the same since it was four months old. V. P. Gibney,[79] of New York, has reported a family consisting of father and mother, five children, and one grandchild. The father and mother are semi-ambidextrous. All of the children and the grandchild are semi-ambidextrous to an annoying degree; all of the movements which they perform with one hand are simultaneously performed by the other hand. The girls are obliged to use only one hand when dressing themselves, or when cutting patterns, and hold the other hand down by their side, because the two hands perform the same movements at the same time and would interfere with each other. One factor in heredity concerning which there has been much dispute, and whose existence has been denied because of certain theories anent the nerve connection of the mother and foetus, is that of maternal impressions. As Féré[80] has shown, the foetus exhibits very decided reaction to sensory impressions on the mother. He cites cases of several women who, often in the midst of an ordinary dream, producing but very moderate excitation, not generally interrupting sleep, were awakened by foetal movements. The dreams had nothing of the nightmare which would cause sudden contraction under the influence of a terrifying idea. They were merely the ordinary phenomena of sleep. Mental changes of the mother hence excite motor reactions in the foetus, and, as with sensorial excitations, these reactions are stronger in the foetus than in the mother. The mechanism of these motor reactions is, Féré points out, obviously due to unconscious and involuntary movement of the muscle walls of the womb. The organisation of a morbid predisposition may be largely influenced by an accident accompanying conception or gestation. In some degenerates cannot be found a trace of hereditary defect. The fact cited explains how sensorial excitations or repeated and violent emotions in the mother during pregnancy give rise to profound nutritive troubles in the foetus, and especially in its nervous system. These congenitally degenerated beings (_ab utero_) can hardly be distinguished from those having direct heredity. A considerable number of cases of epilepsy, idiocy, &c., are recognised as having arisen from alcoholism in the mother. Psychic troubles in the mother may react upon the foetus in an analogous way.