The Jewish child : its history, folklore, biology, & sociology / by W.M. Feldman ; with an introduction by Sir James Crichton-Browne.

  • Feldman, W. M. (William Moses), 1879-1939.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Jewish child : its history, folklore, biology, & sociology / by W.M. Feldman ; with an introduction by Sir James Crichton-Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    149/492 (page 115)
    ïi- vili.] Hygiene of Pregnancy 115 ceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring- straked, speckled, and spotted.^ The Talmud also tells of R. Jochanan, who was re¬ markably beautiful, that he was in the habit of stand¬ ing in front of the ritual bath-house, in order that the women who came there should see him and conceive good-looking children.^ The Midrash narrates that an Arabian King once said to R. Akiba that he suspected his consort of infidelity, because, in spite of the fact that both he and she were dark-coloured, she gave birth to a white child. But R. Akiba said that this was no absolute proof of unfaithful¬ ness, because she might during intercourse have looked at pictures of white faces on the wall, and the King acknow¬ ledged that the pictures on his walls were those of white faces.^ This story has by many authors been quite erroneously attributed to Hippocrates. The colour of Charidea, the white daughter of the black King and Queen of ^Ethiopia, is explained, in the romance of Heliodorus,^ as due to the fact that the Queen looked at a statue of Andromeda at the time of conception. A similar tale is also referred to by Quintilian,^ except that in that case the parents were white and the infant was black, because the picture was that of a Moor. According to Empedocles, infants resemble the statues which the mothers found pleasure in looking at during pregnancy.® The law of Lycurgus required Spartan pregnant women ; to look upon statues of Castor and Pollux, in order that i they might give birth to strong and beautiful children. 1 Dionysius of Syracuse is also said to have hung pictures ^ Gen. XXX. 37-39 ; see also Aboda Zarah 24a. ^ Berachoth 20a. ® Num. R. ix. ^ iEthiopica, lib. iv., c. 10. ® Institutione-j Oratoricœ, quoted by Ballantyne. ® Plutarch, De placit. philos., lib. v.; c. 12. i