ON DETERMINING THE SEX OF THE UNBORN CHILD
T. E. C. Jr. M.D.
Dr. Eugene Beckland, considered by some of his contemporaries to be the most distinguished French physiologist of the first half of the 19th century, offered the rules cited below for telling the sexes of children before they were born.*
There are tolerably conclusive rules, for telling the sexes of children before they are born; and were I to be guided entirely by the testimony of my own experience, I would say, that these rules are infallible. Ladies experience more sickness with boys than with girls, probably because they are generally larger and more lively. Their foreign appetites are also of a stronger, better defined, and more natural character. For instance, with one they will long for meat, spiritous liquors, etc.; with the other, for chalk, isinglass, and various substances, which would be quite repugnant to her at other times. Anain roundness of form promises a boy; whereas when the tendency is nearly all to the front, and the hips and back give but little evidence of the lady's situation, the great probability is, that the little stranger is a girl. At all events, these indications never have deceived me.1
