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"Magendie acknowledges that, despite scientific researches, comparatively little is known of foetal life. At page 518 of the American edition of his Precis Elementaire de Physiologie he instances "a case where the umbilical cord was ruptured and perfectly cicatrized", and asks "How was the circulation carried on in this organ?" On the next page, he [...]

"Cornelius Gemma tells of a child that was born with his forehead wounded and running with blood, the result of his father's threats toward his mother "... with a drawn sword which he directed toward her forehead"; Sennertius records the case of a pregnant woman who, seeing a butcher divide a swine's head with his [...]

"The power of imagination upon our physical condition, even after we arrive at maturity, is evinced in many familiar ways. In medicine, the intelligent physician does not hesitate to accord to it a curative or morbific potency greater than his pills and potions. He calls it the vis medicatrix naturae, and his first endeavor is [...]

"In a work published in London, in 1659, a powerful argument is made in refutation of the materialists by showing the potency of the human mind upon the subtile forces of nature. The author, Dr. More, views the foetus as if it were a plastic substance, which can be fashioned by the mother to an [...]