In May 1927 , a reader of theSpokesman - Reviewin Spokane , Washington , wrotein to a physician ’s tower with a pressingpregnancy - related issue .
“ I have heard for some meter that if an expectant female parent , say during her fourth calendar month , should want anything , she must have it or otherwise it will in some mode affect the child . For illustration , if she should take a whimsey that she wants strawberries , and does not get them , will the kid be marked with ruby mark resembling strawberries ? ”
While the columnist in question , Dr. W.A. Evans , responded with common sense ( “ haywire there , from every slant ” ) , it was not uncommon at the time for birthmarks to provoke a number of superstitions .
What are birthmarks?
It’sestimatedthat rough 10 percent of all baby are turn out with some eccentric of nevus , which can be raise or flat , red or chocolate-brown , large or small . Vascular birthmarks are theresultof overgrown profligate vessels , while others are simply cells that have unlike pigmentation from the rest of the cutis . ( mol are one type of pigmented birthmark . )
Some can be rather big . There is probably no more noted a birthmark than the onesportedby onetime Soviet Union loss leader Mikhail Gorbachev . As Cold War latent hostility flared in the 1980s , Gorbachev ’s big , map - shaped blemish on his sparsely - hairy forehead was right away recognizable . Such mark are often referred to as port wine stains , for their resemblance to a talk drink .
Most , like Gorbachev ’s , are benign ; occasionally , some ask dermatological intercession . Beyond that , skill is n’t really sure what causes them , which has allowed a lot of myths and superstition to take hold .
Strange Old Theories About the Origins of Birthmarks
Perhaps the most punishing of birthmark misconception was thenotionthat they could be “ grounds ” a biotic community had a enchantress in their thick . During the infamousSalem enchantress trialsof the 17th 100 , witchcraft was suspect if a woman had a birthmark , mole , or other skin wound . Rather than be look at an unusual person of pigment or vessels , these were dub “ witch ’s marks ” or “ devil ’s marks ” and wereaddedto the mound of bunk skill that precede to convictions of witchery .
Birthmarks have also long been intertwine with the idea ofmaternal impressions , or thoughts and activities undertake by a pregnant mortal that have the potential to influence their unborn child . intellectual nourishment cravings were once a democratic explanation . As the theory went , if the fraught parent had a food craving and push aside it , their babe would bulge out with a nevus in the form of the food they give up . Or , the fraught somebody might scrape up themself somewhere on their skin , which would result in the birthmark seem in the same smirch on the child ’s body .
enate impression could go both ways . If a pregnant soul admired a Hellenic statue , then perhaps they ’d have attractive offspring . Or it could be calamitous : Some dreaded running into arabbit or rabbit , lest the baby be born with a crevice ( or hare- ) lip . Anothertalehad it that a person lead into a one - legged world might have a one - legged babe . The feeling was thatexperiencing any variety of fright at all could leave a lasting mark .
While those beliefs endured into the twentieth 100 , as evidence by the concernedSpokesman - Reviewreader , rational explanation circulated well before then . One correspondent to a aesculapian journal in 1898 complain of the “ pestering hob ” that was the prenatal stamp .
While masses have mostly dismissed such myths , folklore can still inform how people interpret nevus . For centuries , the stork has been symbolical of fertility , deliveringbabies to happy family by lightly bite them with their schnoz . ( They also tolerate parent to quash discussingconception . ) If a kid had a nevus on the back of their neck , it was known as a stork bite , which is a good deal more pleasant - fathom than receive the mark of the devil .
