=Mother and child vitally one.=--The physical organism of man is never more susceptible to mental impression than during its plastic state before birth. The mother and her child are in continuous vital communication with each other. In a very vital sense the mother is the architect of her child. If the mother keeps herself in a perfectly normal state, the child will most likely be normal. Any abnormal state the mother may pass through may have its abnormal influence upon her child. =The effect of a constant mental repetition.=--The initial mentation, whether it be a scare, anger, sympathy, grief, desire or disgust locates and starts the birthmarks. If this unusual initial mental image were never repeated, the effect on the child would be hardly perceptible. If the murderer could prevent the return of the mental picture of his crime, the criminal look in his face would not become noticeable. It is the constant repetition of the first mental state that finally takes permanent form in the child’s body. =How to prevent marking a child.=--How can susceptible mothers prevent marking their children? By refusing to repeat the mental image. They should keep their minds engaged in other matters. Banish the mental picture every time it occurs in the stream of consciousness. In this way birthmarks may be largely prevented. The following cases are only a few that I have studied personally and know to be true. I have had many friends tell me of cases known to them, many of which would be very interesting to you, but I refrain from the use of them in this lecture. =Frightened by a crawfish.=--Rev. T. of ----, had a right thumb that was double to the first joint. He told me that his mother, while washing clothes at a stream, turned over a flat rock and a crawfish caught her by the thumb with one of its big claws. In her fright she flung the crawfish out on the bank. I studied another case that was very nearly a duplicate of this one. These are examples of fright. =Arkansas mother.=--While I was filling an engagement in the town of ----, Ark., the pastor’s wife became the mother of a little girl whose fingers were quite long and the joints of the fingers, hands and arms, stiff. She was quite nervous and despondent during gestation. She told me that one day when she was alone at home and especially gloomy and nervous, she heard some one rap at the door and looking up she saw a man standing at the door with deformed hands. =Frightened at a mole.=--I went out eleven miles from G. C., state of ----, to study a very sad case in the home of a cultured young couple. The child was two years old. Its hands were turned with the palms backwards and its arms were not over six inches long. It preferred to crawl rather than walk. On the floor it handled itself like a mole. The mother told me that in the early months of gestation she was greatly frightened at a mole.