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SECT. XLII. 



OK THE MILK. 



608. THE breasts, most sacred fountains, and, as 

 Gellius Favorinus the philosopher elegantly calls them, 

 the rearers (educatores) of the human race, are inti- 

 mately connected with the uterus in various ways. The 

 functions of neither can properly be said to exist dur- 

 ring infancy ; at puberty, both begin to flourish, when 

 the catamenia appear, the breasts assume some degree 

 of plumpness; from that period they undergo either 

 simultaneous changes, the breasts beginning to swell 

 and secrete milk during the pregnancy of the womb, or 

 alternate changes, the catamenia ceasing while the 

 child is suckled, or the lochia becoming copious if the 

 child is not suckled, and s. p. Finally, when age 

 creeps on, the function of each absolutely ceases, 

 when the catamenia disappear, both the uterus and the 

 breasts become equally inert. I omit pathological phe- 

 nomena ; v. c. those which occur in irregular menstru- 

 ation, leucorrhoea, after extirpation of the ovaria, and 

 in other morbid affections. 



609. If this intimate connection is kept in view, we 

 shall not be astonished that nearly every description of 

 sympathy formerly mentioned (56) exists between these 

 organs of the female thorax and abdomen.* 



* J. Anemaet, L>e mirabili qitee mammas inter ct uterum intercedit sym- 

 pothia. LB. 1784. 4to. 



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