58 THE SECRETIONS: 



microscopic examinations of the milk of women with swelled 

 breasts ; it resembles, in some measure, the colostrum. In the 

 milk of a cow affected with vaccinia, I found a number of cor- 

 puscles, which were very like the yellow granulated colostrum- 

 corpuscles. 



I have had an opportunity of examining the milk of a re- 

 cently-delivered woman, who was in a state of considerable 

 fever in consequence of a violent fit of passion : her child, after 

 partaking of her milk, was seized with vomiting, diarrhoea, and 

 convulsions. The breasts were swollen, tense, and painful ; the 

 milk had an alkaline reaction, and apparently possessed the 

 qualities of the ordinary secretion ; it had, however, a different 

 and not very easily described animal odour. When boiled it 

 exhibited no albumen, but after evaporation to a certain point 

 it coagulated, and had a marked acid reaction. Another por- 

 tion that was set aside, coagulated after some hours, and had 

 an acid reaction, a circumstance I have never observed in healthy 

 human milk, which will remain undecomposed for five or six 

 days. After twenty hours it developed so large an amount of 

 sulphuretted hydrogen, that a slip of paper which had been 

 moistened in a solution of lead, and was then placed in the flask, 

 in a short time became brown. The casein, sugar, and butter, 

 did not seem to have undergone any change, either qualitative 

 or quantitative. In fact there appeared to be little difference be- 

 tween it and the milk that was secreted twenty-four hours 

 before, and six days later, as may be seen by a comparison of 

 analyses 67, 68, and 69 : analysis 68 merely exhibits a smaller 

 proportion of solid constituents, which is principally due to the 

 decrease of butter. The differences observable in this milk 

 were undoubtedly connected with the bad effects which it pro- 

 duced on the infant. 



The case was altogether different with the milk of a woman 

 who contracted syphilis after the birth of her first child, and 

 who, in consequence of defective or improper medical treatment, 

 carried the remains of the disease about her for years. The 

 children which she bore while in this condition, and which 

 were begotten by her husband who also had some suspicious 

 sores on the feet, did well for the first half year, they then 

 became highly scrofulous, and died in a state of marasmus : 

 the first child was perfectly healthy. The milk, when she was 



