CHAPTEE XV. 



POISONOUS MILK AND MILK-PANICS. 



IT is known that violent mental emotion exercises an un- 

 favorable influence on the secretion of the mammary gland ; 

 and a fit of anger has rendered the milk of the human mother 

 poisonous to the child. No doubt the milk of the cow is 

 more or less liable to similar influences ; and cows which are 

 giving milk should not be driven or harassed in any way. 

 Diet, too, has an effect on the quality of the milk ; a purga- 

 tive administered to the mother often taking effect on the 

 child. Poisonous herbs fed on by the cow contaminate the 

 milk ; and a very well-known example in point is afforded 

 by turnipy butter, which derives its very objectionable (though 

 not poisonous) properties from turnips on which the cow has 

 happened to feed. All this tends to show the importance of 

 attending to the health of milk-giving cows, and to the kind 

 of fodder on which they are fed. 



Milk, after it has been yielded by the animal, may suffer 

 contamination at a later stage. A case is recorded where, in 

 the process of milking, which was performed by persons re- 

 covering from scarlet fever, the infection of scarlet fever was 

 conveyed by the milk to children who drank it. This is, I 

 believe, authentic enough. 



In addition to these genuine instances of milk-poisoning, 

 a very subtle kind of poisoning has been described. It has 

 been said that, if a very minute qantity of water from a 

 foul well be mixed with a very large quantity of milk, the 

 whole mass of milk will become poisonous. And, as is well 



