318 INFLUENCE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



that the apprehension of the brutal conduct of a drunken husband, will put a 

 stop for a time to the secretion of milk. When this happens, the breast feels 

 knotted and hard, flaccid from the absence of milk, and that which is secreted 

 is highly irritating, and some time elapses before a healthy secretion returns. 

 Terror, which is sudden and great fear, instantly stops this secretion." Of 

 this, two striking instances, in which the secretion, although previously abun- 

 dant, was completely arrested by this emotion, are detailed by Sir A. C. 

 " Those passions which are generally sources of pleasure, and which, when 

 moderately indulged, are conducive to health, will, when carried to excess, 

 alter, and even entirely check the secretion of milk." 



428. The following is perhaps the most remarkable instance on record of 

 the effect of strong mental excitement on the Mammary secretion ; the event 

 could hardly be regarded as more than a simple coincidence, if it were not 

 borne out by the less striking but equally decisive facts already mentioned. 

 "A Carpenter fell into a quarrel with a Soldier billeted in his house, and was 

 set upon by the latter with his drawn sword. The Wife of the Carpenter at 

 first trembled from fear and terror, and then suddenly threw herself furiously 

 between the combatants, wrested the sword from the Soldier's hand, broke it 

 in pieces, and threw it away. During the tumult, some neighbours came in 

 and separated the men. While in this state of strong excitement the mother 

 took up her child from the cradle where it lay playing, and in the most per- 

 fect health, never having had a moment's illness ; she gave it the breast, and 

 in so doing sealed its fate. In a few minutes the infant left off sucking, be- 

 came restless, panted, and sank dead upon its mother's bosom. The physician 

 who was instantly called in, found the child lying in the cradle, as if asleep, 

 and with its features undisturbed; but all his resources were fruitless. It 

 was irrecoverably gone."* In this interesting case, the milk must have 

 undergone a change, which gave it a powerful sedative action upon the 

 susceptible nervous system of the infant: the following, which recently oc- 

 curred within the Author's own knowledge, is perhaps equally valuable to the 

 Physiologist, as an example of the similarly fatal influence of undue emotion 

 of a different character; and both should serve as a salutary warning to 

 mothers, not to indulge either in the exciting or depressing passions. A lady 

 having several children, of which none had manifested any particular tendency 

 to cerebral disease, and of which the youngest was a healthy infant a few 

 months old, heard of the death (from acute hydrocephalus) of the infant child 

 of a friend residing at a distance, with whom she had been on terms of close 

 intimacy, and whose family had increased almost cotemporaneously with her 

 own. The circumstance naturally made a strong impression on her mind; 

 and she dwelt upon it the more, perhaps, as she happened at that period to 

 be separated from the rest of her family, and to be much alone with her babe. 

 One morning, shortly after having nursed it, she laid the infant in its cradle, 

 asleep and apparently in perfect health ; her attention was shortly attracted to 

 it by a noise ; and, on going to the cradle, she found her infant in a convulsion, 



*Dr. Von Ammon, in his treatise "Die ersten Mutterpflichten und die erste Kindesp- 

 flege," quoted in Dr. A. Combe's excellent little work on the Management of Infancy. 

 Similar facts are recorded by other writers. Mr. Wardrop mentions (Lancet, No. 516), 

 that having removed a small tumour from behind the ear of a mother, all went well, until 

 she fell into a violent passion ; and the child, being suckled soon afterwards, died in 

 convulsions. He was sent for hastily to see another child in convulsions, after taking 

 the breast of a nurse who had just been severely reprimanded; and he was informed by 

 Sir Richard Croft, that he had seen many similar instances. Three others are recorded 

 by Burdach (Physiologic, 522); in one of them, the infant was seized with convulsions 

 on the right side, and hemiplegia on the left, on sucking immediately after its mother had 

 met with some distressing occurrence. Another case was that of a puppy, which was 

 seized with epilepsy, on sucking its mother after a fit of rage. 



