Maternal Impressions: From Sheep to Humans

 The theory of maternal impression is famously associated with the case of Joseph Merrick, the elephant man, who believed that he looked the way he did because his mother had been frightened by an elephant when he was in the womb. The actual cause of his deformity remains unknown. Another famous case was that of Mary Toft, who in 1726 (falsely) claimed to have given birth to rabbits. Certain physicians at the time supported the possibility that the story could have been true by suggesting that she had imagined the rabbits. Eventually she confessed the hoax (her husband had been buying the rabbits.)

 See, for example, Rav David Barda, “Avahut al yeled she-nolad be-dimyon tzurat ha-panim” Zakhor le-Avraham(Holon, 5754), also Rav Yitzhak Zilberstein in Chashukei Chemed on Baba Metzia 84a and Ephraim Fischel Weinberger in Responsa Yad Ephraim 7, and Rav Ovadiah Yosef, Yabia Omer 3, Even Ha-Ezer 3. These rabbis are following the precedent of Rav Shalom Schwadron (Responsa Maharsham3:161) who used some of the above sources as well as and the midrash about God making Isaac look like Abraham to defend the legitimate paternity of a child suspected of being a born of adulterous union.