Investigating the Mary Toft Phenomenon

Investigating the Mary Toft Phenomenon

In the 1720s, a number of authors took part in a pamphlet disagreement over the power maternal imagination had on the outcomes of a pregnancy. Some of these authors were James Blondel and Daniel Turner. Turner agreed with the traditional conviction that the imagination of a woman with child could be reflected in her unborn child, imprinting the resulting fetus with numerous deformities. Blondel, however, did not see how this would happen, and, as a result, tried hard to refute this argument with anatomical and rational arguments (Wilson 63-85). The issue that sparked this argument and brought it to…