526 C. The next case is taken from an article entitled "Maternal Impressions and their Influence upon the Foetus in Utero," by Claudius Henry Maston, M.D., of Mobile, Ala., in The Medical News, vol. lxxii., January - June 1898 (New York).

[I here] present a brief history of a case of very great interest, and since it has occurred under my own immediate observation, I can vouch for its truth. William Y., aged twenty-two years, was shot on the morning of September 24th, 1894. The ball, a 38-calibre, was fired from a Winchester rifle, and entered the rear of the chest on the left side, just below and to the outer side of the angle of the scapula; at this point it penetrated the chest between the seventh and eighth ribs, and passing through the entire chest, emerged from the intercostal space between the fourth and fifth ribs, two and a quarter inches from the left nipple on the inner side. The exact measurement of the man's chest shows that the distance from the midsternal line in a transverse direction to the centre of the left nipple is four and a quarter inches; a line drawn from the wound of entrance to that of exit passes directly through the location of the right ventricle; and it is upon this anatomic fact that I diagnosed the case to be one of direct heart penetration.

I shall not consume time with a detail of the case, which has been the subject of a paper upon " Gunshot Wounds of the Heart," which was read before the American Surgical Association at its New York Meeting in 1895, and published in vol. xiii. of its Transactions. At the time when this man was shot his wife was near by, and reached him very soon afterwards. In attempting to render what assistance was in her power, her hands were stained with blood, and she also had her face covered with blood. When I saw the patient late that afternoon, I found her very much agitated, and seemingly as much exercised on account of her condition as she was for her husband's safety. She then informed me that she was pregnant, and felt certain that her child would be born with a "bloody face." I asked her - "Why a bloody face?" and she said - "Because I put my bloody hands to my face and covered it with blood, and I know my child will be born with a bloody face." She was an ignorant country woman, and filled with superstitious notions. I calmed her fears as much as I possibly could, and dismissed the subject from my mind.

After a long and tedious convalescence her husband was able to be taken home in the country, and I thought no more of the case beyond the remarkable recovery from a severe wound.

During the succeeding spring, 1895, the man and his wife came to the city and called at my office, bringing with them a new-born infant. She said to me - "Doctor, my baby has not got a bloody face, but it has got the holes where the ball went through Bill's breast." Upon examination of the child I did not find "the holes" which she said were there, but in place of them I discovered bright red marks, clearly shown upon the chest of the child; they were not simply discoloured spots, but elevated nævi, and bright carmine-coloured spots easily to be seen at a distance of a hundred feet. There they were on the left side of the chest, and although not in the exact anatomic location of the wound on the father's chest, still so near the spot that they are easily recognised as resulting therefrom. The mother had seen the wounds in her husband's chest, and had told me during his illness that they made her sick every time she looked at them.

Interested now in the condition of the case, I made accurate inquiries as to her pregnancy and the date of her delivery. She informed me that her pregnancy had passed as usual in former ones, with the exception that she had been very nervous, and that the motions of the child had been more violent, and were brought on by any noise or excitement. Her labour took place on May 10th, 1895; was about as previous deliveries. Assuming the term of gestation to be 280 days, and this child being born on May 10th, 1895, it is fair to calculate that her conception took place about August 3rd, 1894, and from that date to September 24th, the date on which the father was shot, gives us 52 days. The question is, - Was the maternal excitement at the sight of the wound in her husband's chest the cause of the marks upon the child with which she was then pregnant? I present the facts and leave the reader to answer.