35. i) Dusty books and silence

Last week, here at the European Capital of Culture 2008, we were blessed by no less august a figure than Andy Burnham, the government’s Culture Secretary, outlining the glorious future for Britain’s libraries in the 21st century, “far removed from the stereotype of dusty books and silence.” Libraries, we are thrilled to hear, will be put at the very heart of communities, and all kinds of excitement and fun will be contained therein.

Liverpool, like most UK cities, has a splendid record of doing its very best to banish the association of libraries with mere dusty books, by selling volumes acquired at public expense off at 10p a book, at a rate sufficient to keep the city’s antiquarian book dealers in business. By rigorously applying the criteria of popularity of a given volume to determine whether it remains in the collection, libraries are managing to gradually phase out the fuddy-duddy ramblings of yesteryear with the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer serialization. I am not complaining : recent acquisitions to the Barleycorn collection have included Nelson's Purse ("the rise and vertiginous fall of Nelson's confident, Alexander Davison") printed way back in 2004, and The Shield of Achilles : War, Peace and the Course of History (2002), which were together worth paying less than the price of a pint of milk for.

Last month The Times managed to hilariously put recent relaxations of prohibitions against food and talking to the test by sending a reporter round to various London libraries to talk loudly on her mobile phone and spill doughnut crumbs and cola on the books. What larks, Pip!

Volume 14 of the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica contains the fascinating and extensively researched article LIBRARIES by H. R. Tedder, F. S. A., Librarian, Athenaeum Club, and E. C. Thomas, B. A., Secretary, Library Association, London. As well as a history of libraries, advice on the collection and maintenance of a library, there is also a survey, accompanied by a table consisting of ten pages of statistics, of the collections of every library in the United Kingdom and the principal libraries of the rest of the world. It is impressive and striking as an attempt to provide something of an index to all the printed knowledge of the planet, circa 1882.

The historical portion of the article gives a fascinating impression given of the fragility, across the ages, of the process by which knowledge has been transferred, and a tantalising vision of all that has been lost to dust and fire.

“The researches which have followed the discoveries of Botta and Layard have thrown unexpected light not only upon the history but upon the arts, the sciences, and the literature of the ancient civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria. In all these wondrous revelations no facts are more interesting than those which show the existence of extensive libraries so many ages ago, and none are more eloquent of the elaborateness of these forgotten civilizations.

“In the course of his excavations at Nineveh in 1850, Layard came upon some chambers in the south-west palace, the floor of which, as well as of the adjoining rooms, was covered to the depth of a foot with tablets of clay, covered with cuneiform characters, in many cases so small as to require a magnifying glass. These varied in size from an inch to a foot square. […] These tablets formed the library of the great monarch Assur-bani-pal -the Sardanapalus of the Greeks - the greatest patron of literature among the Assyrians. It is estimated that this library consisted of some ten thousand distinct works and documents, some of the works extending over several tablets. The tablets appear to have been methodically arranged and catalogued, and the library seems to have been thrown open for the general use of the king’s subjects. [See Menant, Bibliothéque du Palais de Nineve, Paris, 1880.] A great portion of this library has already been brought to England and deposited in the British Museum, but it is calculated that there still remain some 20,000 fragments to be gathered up. [...]"

Complaints of cultural imperialism would be entirely out of place here, but it is kind of fun to read a throwaway contemporary reference to the British Museum's hoovering up of artifacts and antiquities.

There follows an account of the ancient Greek libraries, centering on those of Alexandria. I had a vague idea that the destruction of that renowned repository of learning was a particular and infamous event in history : it transpires that the historical truth is more complex.

"When Caesar set fire to the fleet in the harbour of Alexandria, the flames accidentally extended to the larger library of the Bruchium, and it was destroyed. [Parthey (Alexandrinisches Museum) assigns topographical reasons for doubting this story.] Anthony endeavoured to repair the loss by presenting to Cleopatra the library from Pergamus. This was very probably placed in the Bruchium, as this continued to be the literary quarter of Alexandria until the time of Aurelian. [...] The usual statement that from the date of the restoration of the Bruchium under Cleopatra the libraries continued in a flourishing condition until they were destroyed bafter the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens in 640 A.D. can hardly be supported. It is very possible that one of the libraries perished when the Bruchium quarter was destroyed by Auralian, 273 A. D. In 389 or 391 an edict of Theodosius ordered the destruction of the Serapeum, and its books were pillaged by Christians. When we take into account the disordered condition of the times, and the neglect into which literature and science had fallen, there can be little difficulty in believing that there were but few books left to be destroyed by the soldiers of 'Amr. The familiar anecdote of the caliph's message to his general (vol. i. p. 494) rests mainly upon the evidence of Abulfaragius, so that we may be tempted to agree with Gibbon that the report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years is overbalanced by the silence of earlier native annalists. It is, however, so far from easy to settle the question that a cloud of names could easily be cited upon either side, while some of the most careful inquirers confess the difficulty of a decision."

This underlines something brought to mind recently, when I heard on the radio some academic or politician speaking of a constant cultural effort throughout 19th century British academia to denigrate the Arabic and Islamic world. I have yet to scour the pages of Britannica for references which may support or refute this assertion ; my general impression at the time was that the statement was some way off the mark, : this article supports that notion. Elsewhere, where the authors write of libraries in the dark and middle ages, this is emphasized again. After speaking of the fragile flame of learning preserved by monastic tradition (with its own repeated outbreaks of hostility against the writings of earlier pagans), we read :

"The first conquests of the Arabians, as we have already seen, threatened hostility to literature. But, as soon as their conquests were secured, the caliphs became the patrons of learning and science. Greek manuscripts were eagerly sought for and translated into Arabic, and colleges and libraries everywhere arose. Baghdad in the East and Cordova in the West became the seats of a rich development of letters and science during the age when the civilization of Europe was most obscured. Cairo and Tripoli were also distinguished for their libraries. The royal library of the Fatimites in Africa is said to have numbered 100,000 manuscripts, while that collected by the Omayyads in Spain is reported to have contained six times as many. It is said that there were no less than seventy libraries in the cities of Andalusia. Whether these figures be exaggerated or not - and they are much below those given by some Arabian writers, which are undoubtedly so - it is certain that the libraries of the Arabians and the Moors of Spain offer a very remarkable contrast to those of the Christian nations during the same period."

Still to come : Tedder & Thomas's catalogue of the world's libraries, and how best to avoid the fatal proclivity of book-binders.

Opposed by all thinking Chinese

Britain's relations with China in the 19th century were based on rather morally dubious circumstances. The basic facts are laid out reasonably succinctly in the OPIUM article by E. M. Holmes.

Opium first came to China from Asia Minor in the 13th century, presumably under the growth of trans-continental trade fostered by the Mongols. Until the middle of the 18th century it was, however

imported in comparatively small quantity by the Chinese solely as a remedy for dysentry, diarrhoea, and fevers, and was usually brought from India by junks as a return cargo. In the year 1757 the monopoly of opium cultivation passed into the hands of the East India Company through the victory of Clive at Plassey. Up to 1773 the trade with China had been in the hands of the Portuguese, but the quantity annually exported to that country rarely exceeded 200 chests. In that year the East India Company took the trade under their charge, and in 1776 the annual export reached 1000 chests, and 4054 chests in 1790. Although the importation was forbidden by the Chinese emperor Keaking in 1796, and opium-smoking punished with severe penalties, which were ultimately increased to transportation and death, the trade continued and had increased during 1820-30 to 16,877 chests per annum. In 1839 a proclamation was issued threatening hostile measures if the English opium ships serving as depots were not sent away. The demand for removal not being complied with, 20,291 chests of opium (of 149 1/3 lb each), valued at £2,000,000, were destroyed by the Chinese commissioner Lin ; but still the British sought to smuggle cargoes on shore, and some outrages committed on both sides led to an open war, which was ended by the treaty of Nanking in 1842 (See CHINA, vol. v. p. 651). From that time to the present, in spite of he remonstrances of the Chinese Government, the exportation of opium from India to China has continued, having increased from 52,925 piculs (of 133 1/3 lb) in 1850 to 96,839 piculs in 1880.

The British Empire's role as international drug-dealers tends to be over-shadowed in the opprobrium-garnering stakes by the business of human bondage, yet when this article was published in 1884, the opium trade was still flourishing, and no Wilberforce was crusading for its abolition. Economic factors were in the process of ending this nice little earner for the East India Company, through the fact that the Chinese were now in the process of growing their own opium, so that a time was "confidently anticipated by the Chinese when Indian opium will be entirely supplanted by the native drug."

[As a curious coincidence of historical economics, the decline in the value of the British opium trade between India and China coincided with the British appetite for tea no longer being dependent on the Chinese leaf. For centuries, the British had looked for tea or sought ways of growing it in India, without success, until the happy discovery of the Assam plant by Mr David Scott, an employee of the Company in Calcutta, in 1820.]

The suggestion of the CHINA article, and presumably a widely held belief and justification of the trade, was that an inherent weakness of the Chinese gave a predilection for opium addiction.

Drunkenness is not a national vice, but, unfortunately, their abstinence does not extend to opium, a drug which seems to have a greater attraction for them than any other people on the earth. They take to it greedily, and when once the habit of smoking it becomes confirmed, the difficulty of relinquishing it is exceedingly great.

The Opium article (which is reproduced in full and well worth the read, at www.1902encyclopedia.com), in addition to much technical information relating to the cultivation and trade of the plant, also contains some interesting observations on its use as a recreational narcotic, including an enticingly detailed account of the manner in which it is smoked, provided by a Mr Theo. Sampson of Canton:

"The smoker, lying on his side, with his face towards the tray and his head resting on a high hard pillow (sometimes made of earthenware, but more frequently of bamboo covered with leather), takes the pipe in his hand ; with the other hand the takes a dipper and puts the sharp end of it into the opium, which is of a treacly consistency. Twisting it round and round he gets a large drop of the fluid to adhere tot he dipper; still twisting it round to prevent it falling he brings the drop over the flame of the lamp, and twirling it round and round the roasts it ; all this is done with acquired dexterity. The opium must not be burnt or made too dry, but roasted gently till it looks like burnt worsted ; every now and then he takes it away from the flame and rolls it (still on the en of the dipper) on the flat surface of the bow). When it is roasted and rolled to his satisfaction he gently heats the centre of the bowl, where there is a small orifice; then he quickly thrusts the end of the dipper into the orifice, twirls it round smartly, and withdraws it ; if this is properly done, the opium (now about the size of a gain of hempseed or a little larger) is left adhering to the bowl immediately over the orifice. It is now ready for smoking.

"The smoker assumed a comfortable attitude (lying down of course) at a proper distance from the lamp. He now puts the stem to his lips, and holds the bowl over the lamp. The heat causes the opium to frizzle, and the smoker takes three or four long inhalations, all the time using the dipper to bring every particle of the opium to the orifice as it burns away, but not taking his lips from the end of stem, or the opium pellet from the lamp till all is finished. Then he uses the flattened end of the dipper to scrape away any little residue there may be left around the orifice, and proceeds to prepare another pipe. The preparations occupy from five to ten minutes, and the actual smoking about thirty seconds. The smoke is swallowed, and is exhaled through both the mouth and the nose."

Holmes concludes with a balanced appraisal of the dangers of the drug, particularly as posed to moral imbeciles:

So far as can be gathered from the conflicting statements published on the subject, opium-smoking may be regarded much in the same light as the use of alcoholic stimulants. To the great majority of smokers who use it moderately it appears to act as a stimulant, and to enable them to undergo great fatigue and to go for a considerable time with little or no food. According to the reports given by authorities on the subject, when the smoker has plenty of active work it appears to be no more injurious than smoking tobacco. When carried to excess it becomes an inveterate habit ; but this happens chiefly individuals of weak-will power, who would just as easily become the victims of intoxicating drinks, and who are practically moral imbeciles, often addicted also the other forms of depravity. The effect in bad cases is to cause loss of appetite, a leaden pallor of the skin, and a degree of leanness so excessive as to make its victims appear like living skeletons. All inclination for exertion becomes gradually lost business is neglected, and certain ruin to the smoker follows. There can be no doubt that the use of the drug is opposed by all thinking Chinese who are not pecuniarily interested in the opium trade or cultivation, for several reasons, among which may be mentioned the drain of bullion from the country, the decrease of population, the liability to famine through the cultivation of opium where cereals should be grown, and the corruption of state officials.

10. (i) Empire: India, tigers, cotton and opium

In last week's investigation into what clarity the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica can give to the perhaps surprisingly vague concept of Britishness, we noted in passing that there is no entry in the Index reading EMPIRE, British, the. Is there an underlying significance to this omission? Does it perhaps indicate a characteristic reluctance to brag on such a theme?
Seeking answers to these questions, we must look beyond the Index, and where better to start than Volume 12 and the jewel in Empire's crown, INDIA. As befits the subject, Britannica gives India a splendid and fascinating treatment, of which the cursory and haphazard survey here below is a very poor reflection, for which, as always, my apologies.

Firstly we find a double page spread - a rare indulgence in Britannica - showing a map of the sub-continent . With British Territory coloured pink and Dependent and Subordinate Native States coloured yellow, India looks very much like a strawberry and vanilla mashed dollop of ice cream. Turning the page, the opening paragraph of Sir W. W. Hunter (LL. D., C.I.E, Director-General of Statistics to the Government of India)'s essay confirms that we have come to the right place to illuminate our subject:

India is a great empire of Asia, composed of twelve provinces under direct British administration, and about one-hundred and fifty feudatory states and principalities, which equally with the British provinces acknowledge the paramount sovereignty of the British crown. The whole empire contains close on 1 1/2 million square miles and 240 millions of inhabitants. The area, therefore, is almost equal to, and the population is just equal to, the area and population of all Europe, less Russia. The people exactly double Gibbon's estimate of 120 millions for all the races and nations which obeyed Imperial Rome.

Ha! Take that, Gibbon, and yer damned Romans! Double, I say! And lest anyone was dismayed by the yellow areas of the map of India competing with the sublime pink, note well that those states and principalities equally acknowledge the sovereignty of Her Maj Queen Vic.

Sir W. describes the physical beauty (and wealth) of this empire in a splendid and sweeping portrait "from the highest mountains in the world to vast river deltas raised only a few inches above the level of the sea." He catalogues the sub-continent's wildlife with what seems a seasoned eye that would thrill the blood of any country gent relaxing in his study with a glass of port after a long morning in pursuit of Vulpes vulpes across the Sussex Downs. Of the tiger (who it is "scarcely probable that he will ever be exterminated from India") :

But when once he develops a taste for human blood, the slaughter he works becomes truly formidable. The confirmed man-eater, which is generally an old beast, disabled from over-taking his usual prey, seems to accumulate his tale of victims in sheer cruelty rather than for food. A single tiger is known to have killed 108 people in the course of about 3 years. Another killed an average of about 80 persons per annum. A third caused thirteen villages to be abandoned, and 250 square miles of land to be thrown out of cultivation. A fourth, so late as 1869, killed 127 people, and stopped a public road for many weeks, until the opportune arrival of an English sportsman, who at last killed him.

I would like to draw your attention, distracted perhaps by the laconic image of Johnny Tiger-killer, to what I find to be a particular poetry in the author's varied accounting of the death toll caused by the beasts - a statistician's poetry, perhaps. 108 in 3 years, 80 per annum (for how many annum? Teasingly, we are not told), an unspecified death toll for the third and for the last 127 in an unspecified length of time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, considering the occupation of the author, the real meat of this essay comes in the statistical accounting of peoples and produce. Our esteemed author begins with a justifiable reiteration:

The population of India, with British Burma, amounts to 240 millions, exactly double the number which Gibbon estimated for the Roman empire at the height of its power. But the English government, like the Roman, has respected the rights of native chiefs who are willing to govern peaceably and well, and one-third of the country still remains in the hands of hereditary rulers. Their subjects (including Mysore) make up 54 millions, or over one-fifth of the whole Indian people. The British territories (including Mysore, temporarily under British administration), therefore comprise only two-thirds of the area of India, and less than four-fifths, or 191 millions, of its inhabitants.

Note the use of 'English' rather than 'British' to speak of the government of India.

A land of geographical wonders, with vast millions of population and with colourfully dangerous wildlife, there is also the produce and trade of India for us to consider.

The cultivation of the soil is the occupation of the Indian people, in a sense which is difficult to realize in England, and which cannot be adequately expressed by figures.

Nonetheless, of the cultivation of such diverse crops as rice, wheat, and millet, of spices, palms, sugar, jute, indigo, and of cotton, tea and opium, our esteemed Director-General does a very admirable job of conveying to us a degree of understanding. Under the heading of 'Commerce' tables showing the imports and exports of of 1877 - 1888 tell us something, at least, of the British Empire in India.

Included in a total of £67,377,464 worth of exports are:

Cotton..........................£9,383,534
Grain (rice, wheat, etc)...£10,134,100
Hides & skins................£3,756,887
Opium..............................£12,374,355
Seeds..............................£7,360,284
Silk.................................£703,549
Sugar...............................£745,851
Tea..................................£3,044,571

Imports to India totalled £58,829,645, and included:

Cotton goods....................£20,172,716
Ales, beers and spirits....£1,401,559
Machinery.....................£850,997
Metals.........................£3,605,464
Railway plant...............£902,002
Salt..............................£401,365
Silk..............................£804,883

It should be clear from these figures that India's greatest value to Britain was as a market for the cotton goods manufactured in the mills of Lancashire: the import of which far outweighs the export of raw cotton, and at a time when Indian cotton was still in increased demand following the shortages caused by the American Civil War. As Sir W. W. Hunter notes, there was a rather grim historical irony in this situation.

Considering that England's export trade with India thus mainly depends upon piece-goods, it is curious to recollect the history of cotton manufacture. In the beginning of the 17th century the industry had not been introduced into England, and whatever demand there was for cotton in that country was satisfied by circuitous importations from India itself, where cotton-weaving was an immemorial industry. In 1641 "Manchester cottons," in imitation of Indian calicoes and chintzes, were still made of wool. Cotton is said to have first been manufactured in England in 1676. To foster the nascent industry, a succession of statutes were passed prohibiting the wear of imported cottons ; and it was not until after the inventions of Arkwright and others and the application of steam as a motive power had secured to Manchester the advantage of cheap production that these protective measures were entirely removed.

Silk manufacture, or sericulture, is noted to be a "stationary, if not a declining industry". Grains and seeds (such as linseed) provide a healthy volume of trade, but only taken together do they overshadow the opium trade. There is a great deal of interest to be learnt about this trade (which has its own entry elsewhere) from Britannica, well deserving a full-posting in the not too distant future. In the meantime, the Director-General makes some interesting points for us to consider.

The opium of commerce is grown and manufactured in [...] the valley of the Ganges round Patna and Benares and a fertile table-land in central India [...] for the most part still under the rule of native chiefs [...]. In the latter of these two regions the cultivation of poppy is free, and the duty is levied as the opium passes through the British presidency of Bombay ; in the former, the cultivation is a strict Government monopoly.

[...]Under the Bengal system annual engagements are entered into by the cultivators to sow a certain quantity of land with poppy ; and it is a fundamental principal that they may agree or refuse as they please. As with most other Indian industries, a pecuniary advance is made to the cultivator before he commences operations, which is balanced when he delivers over the opium at the subordinate agencies. He is compelled to deliver his whole produce, being paid at a fixed rate according to quality.

Tata the Indian family company which bought British Steel last year and is in the process of giving us the world's cheapest car, began in this highly profitable trade : it's difficult to say which line of business sparks more disapproval today, but you can't knock their enterprise. I imagine that their 2008 balance-sheets and projections would meet with Sir W.'s approval, while the irony of the reversal in the economic position, while unlikely to be savoured, would hardly be lost on him.

4. Pregnancy: Medical Jurisprudence, Infanticide and Monsterism

My wife is currently 36 weeks pregnant and we are sharing the joy of impending parenthood. From friends, relatives, medical staff, magazines, the internet and so on and so forth we can in no way be said to be suffering from a deficiency of advice or information on the subject, but instinct and a sense of duty to this blog leads me to turn to Pregnancy in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Index, where I am referred to Volumes 15, 13 and 16, and the subjects of MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, INFANTICIDE and MONSTERS. I begin to suspect that a young couple at the twilight of the 19th century might not have received the same degree of support and reassurance available to us today.

So, in Volume 15, T. Stevenson M.D. of Guy's Hospital tells us that pregnancy "presents one of the widest fields for medico-legal evidence. The limits of age between which it is possible, the limits of utero-gestation, and the signs of pregnancy may all in turn be the subjects of investigation."

The limits of age are a simple enough matter "being limited by the age of puberty on the one hand and the cessation of the monthly flow" on the other. The limits of utero-gestation are "not in England fixed by legislation" but curiously the French code "fixes the extreme limit of three hundred days." This limit is "perhaps never exceeded, if ever reached", which seems fortunate for all parties concerned. Frustratingly, an exact medical definition of the term of gestation is baffled for non-Gallic nations as "[t]he uncertainty of females in fixing the exact date of conception has given rise to the discrepant opinions of physiologists on the subject."

And why is this significant? The following paragraph explains.

"The signs of pregnancy are of the utmost importance to the medical jurist. He may be called upon to pronounce upon the virtue of a female, to sustain or rebut a plea for divorce, to determine whether a capital sentance shall be carried out, or to determine whether it is probable that an heir will be born to an estate. Should he err in his judgement - and mistakes are very possible in the earlier months of utero-gestation - he may commit a grievous wrong."

Indeed.

Medical Jurisprudence is one matter, let us now see what we can learn from Volume 13, W. C. Smith LL. B., Advocate, and the subject of Infanticide.

Firstly, we see that this is a subject of which its history "as an archaic institution has already been referred to in the article FOUNDLING HOSPITALS (vol ix. p. 481)." In opening W. C. Smith acknowledges that principal causes of infanticide have varied in different times and cultures. Where infanticide has served a religious purpose, its victims have primarily been male in atonement for sacrilege as of course the boy "being the nobler child, was preferred." Otherwise victims have primarily been female, as a "positive check" (in the words of Malthus) against "the reckless propogation of children far outrunning the means of subsistence which the energy of the parents can provide", and furthermore it is "because girls cannot provide for themselves that they are killed."

The writer suggests that occurences of infanticide in India were more complex, and he examines the matter in some detail. He reminds us that the "wise action of the British Government" reduced occurence of the practise.

"According to the present law, if the female children fall below a certain percentage in any tract or among any tribe in northern India where infanticide formerly prevailed, the suspected village is placed under police supervision, the cost being charged to the locality. By these measures, together with a strictly enforced system of reporting births and deaths, infanticide has been almost trampled out ; although some of the Rajput clans keep their female offspring suspiciously close to the lowest average which secures them from surveillance."

Oh, those wily Rajputians!

Although earlier in the article the observation is made that "Infanticide still survives among many savage races", we now read that the modern crime "shows no symptom of diminution in the leading nations of Europe."

"In all of them, it is closely connected with illegitimacy in the class of farm and domestic servants. The crime is generally committed by the mother for the purpose of completing the concealment of her shame, and in other cases, where the shame has not survived, in order to escape the burden of her child's support. The paramour sometimes aids in the crime, which is not confined to unmarried mothers."

We learn again of the peculiarities of the French statutes, for in that country "inquiry into paternity is forbidden", leading to the preservation of life "at the expense of morality."

In English law of the 19th century, a child is considered a human being at the moment of birth, and so killing of a child "is homicide - punishable by death - when it dies after birth in consequence of injuries received before, during, or after birth." This leads to niceties of distinction between homicide and abortion - also then a crime, but not a capital offense - the maximum punishment, we are informed, being penal servitude for life.

The author clearly acknowledges the moral complexities of these issues and the problems posed in framing law in the matter. He leaves us,however, in no doubt that he considers abortion to be utterly abhorrent, and is displeased to note that it is a crime which prevailed extensively "even in classes of society in which infanticide proper would not be thought of without a shudder."

It is difficult to imagine that W. C. Smith would be much taken with the moral climate of the modern world and our loss of shame. Still, reading that thirty years prior to publication of Volume 13 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica "a large number of children were murdered for the mere purpose of obtaining the burial money from a benefit club", and reading about the then prevalent "baby-farming houses of London" to which an unwanted child might be sent with payment of a "ridiculously insufficient sum for the maintenance of the child" leading to a "great rate of mortality", does give some evidence that the price of an impaired morality may be worth paying.

And so we come to Volume 16, Charles Creighton, M.A., M.D., and MONSTER. I suppose it goes without saying that this essay, a catalogue of a comprehensive range of birth defects, was not written with the purpose of providing any comforts or reassurance to prospective parents to be. Indeed, it might have proven particularly unfortunate for any Victorian wife to read the paragraphs indicated by the index entry - concerning the possible causes of congenital abnormality. Dr Creighton informs us that "[m]aternal impressions during pregnancy have often been alleged as a cause, and this causation has been discussed at great length by the best authorities. The general opinion seems to be that it is impossible to set aside the influence of subjective states of the mother altogether. The doctrine of maternal impression has often been resorted to when any other explanation was either difficult or inconvenient ; thus, Hippocrates is said to have saved the virtue of a woman who gave birth to a black child by pointing out that there was a picture of a negro on the wall of her chamber." Unwilling as our author is to dismiss this possible explanation of monsterism, which of course has retained its currency in the beliefs practised by Scientologists today, he also offers us the "erratic spontaneity of the embryonic cells and cell-groups" as possible culprit.

One has to hope that detailed accounts of infanticide and five comprehensive pages on the subject of congenital deformity, against, well, nothing at all on the simple biological facts of the process, would not have any kind of negative impression themselves.

[www.1902encyclopedia.com have gone to the trouble of uploading the entirity of the MONSTER article for your edification here]