CASES OF LACTATION OF THE MALE. 973 



lobules containing follicles, from which ducts arise ; and these follicles and 

 ducts are not too minute to be injected, although with difficulty. The evo- 

 lution of the gland goes (mparipassu with that of the body, not undergoing 

 an increase at any particular period ; it is sometimes of considerable size in 

 old age. A fluid, which is probably mucus, may be pressed from the nipple 

 in many persons; and this in the dead body, with even more facility than 

 in the living. That the essential character of the gland is the same in the 

 male as in the female, is shown by the instances, of which there are now 

 several on record, in which infants have been suckled by men ( 790). 



810. Although the state of functional activity in the Mammary gland is 

 usually limited to the epoch succeeding Parturition, yet this is not invari- 

 ably the case ; for numerous instances are on record, in which young women 

 who have never borne children, and even old women long past the period of 

 childbearing, have had such a copious flow of milk as to be able to act as 

 efficient nurses. 1 In these cases, the strong desire to furnish milk, and con- 

 tinued irritation of the nipple by. the infant's mouth, seem to have furnished 

 the stimulus requisite for the formation of the secretion, and it has been 

 found that this is usually adequate to restore the secretion, after it has been 

 intermitted for some months during the ordinary period of lactation, in con- 

 sequence of disorder or debility on the part of the mother, or any other 

 cause ; so that where her condition renders it advisable that she should dis- 

 continue nursing for a time, the child may be withdrawn and the milk 

 " dried up," with a confident expectation that the secretion may be repro- 

 duced subsequently. 2 Dr. McWilliam mentions in his report of the Niger 

 Expedition, 3 that the inhabitants of Boua Vista (Cape de Verd Island) are 

 accustomed to provide a wet-nurse in cases of emergency, in the person of 

 any woman who has once borne a child and is still within the age of child- 

 bearing, by continued fomentation of the mammae with a decoction of the 

 leaves of thejatropha cure-as, and by suction of the nipple. The most curi- 

 ous fact, however, is that even Men should occasionally be able to perform 

 the duties of nurses, and should furnish an adequate supply of infantile 

 nutriment. Several cases of this kind are upon record, 4 but one of the most 

 recent and authentic is that given by Dr. Dunglisou. 5 "Professor Hall, of 

 the University of Maryland, exhibited to his Obstetrical class, in the year 

 1837, a colored man, fifty-five years of age, who had large, soft, well-formed 

 mammae, rather more conical than those of the female, and projecting fully 

 seven inches from the chest ; with perfect and large nipples. The glandular 

 structure seemed to the touch to be exactly like that of the female. This 

 man had officiated as wet-nurse for several years in the family of his mistress; 

 and he represented that the secretion of milk was induced by applying the 

 children intrusted to his care, to the breast during the night. When the 



1 A collection of such cases is given in Dr. Dunglison's Human Physiology, 7th 

 edit., vol. ii, p. 513. 



2 See an account of M. Trousseau's experience on this point, in L'Union Medicale, 

 1852, No. 7 ; and paper bv Dr. Ballou in the Amer. Journ. of Med. Sci , Jan. 1852. 



3 Medical Gazette, Jan." 1847. 



4 See the case described by the Bishop of Cork, in the Philosophical Transactions, 

 vol. xli, p. 813 ; one mentioned by Sir John Franklin (Narrative of a Journey to the 

 Polar Sea, p. 157); and one which fell under the notice of the celebrated traveller 

 Humboldt (Personal Narrative, vol. iii, p. 58). 



6 Human Physiology, 7th edit., vol. ii, p. 514. Dr. Dunglison also mentions that 

 in the winter of 1849-50, an athletic man, twenty-two years of age, presented him- 

 self at the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, whose left mamma without any 

 assignable cause, had become greatly developed, and secreted milk copiously. It may 

 be added that a lactescent fluid, apparently presenting the character of true milk, 

 may frequently be expressed from the mammary glands of infants. (See Dublin 

 Medical Press, April 17th, 1850 ) 



