1. One case, purportedly from ancient times, involved a child of ‘Ethiopian Complexion’ who was delivered to white parents. Physicians and philosophers explained the child's colour as the result of the mother's ‘Intent viewing’ of a picture of an Ethiopian that hung in her bedchamber throughout her pregnancy. Many authors, including Daniel Turner, attributed this case to Hippocrates. M. D. Reeve, in a recent work covering much of the Renaissance literature on ‘Conceptions’Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, No. 2151989 93 93 n.s., No. 35 has shown that this case did not originate with Hippocrates; rather its misattribution to the father of medicine can be traced toDe viribus imaginationis, the 1608 writing of Thomas Fienus. I am indebted to Amal Abou-Aly for this reference. James Blondel, Turner's opponent also argued that no such case existed in the Hippocratic Corpus. Yet, a similar case which Reeve described as the ‘Andromeda effect’ appeared inAethiopica, a work of Heliodorus. Discussion of the Biblical passage will follow.