Coincidence plays such a large part in the matter of supposed maternal impressions that it is impossible to decide how much there is of fact and of consequence in the many stories that are told. Most women are a little afraid, as the time of their labour approaches, lest something or other--usually of an indefinite nature--that has happened during their pregnancy, may cause the marking of their child. When they find that the child is perfectly normal, they breathe a sigh of relief and forget all about it. If any anomaly is noted, however, then they are sure to connect it with some incident during pregnancy, and imagination is apt to lend details that confirm the supposed connection. On the other hand, there are not a few cases in which such anomalies have occurred, and good, sensible mothers have been unable to recall anything that might possibly serve to account for the peculiarity noticed in the child, though corresponding peculiarities in other children were supposed to be readily traceable to maternal impression. Even where there has been no foreboding of evil results, something or other that has occurred during the pregnancy will often be magnified enough by memory to account for the supposed maternal impression. Doctors are very familiar with this tendency to make up stories to account for various deformities. It used to be considered that hip-joint disease and Pott's disease were the result of injuries in early life. They are now known to be due to tuberculous processes not necessarily and indeed only very seldom connected with injuries of any kind. Mothers are {63} nearly always able to account in some way, however, for the beginnings of the disease in some accident that has happened. Young children are apt to have so many falls that some one of them is picked out as the probable cause of the disease that subsequently manifests itself in the joints. It is just this state of affairs that occurs with regard to supposed maternal impression. Some incident that would be otherwise unthought of is magnified into an accident that caused a serious nervous shock, and consequently led to the marking of the child.