168 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



This question, which so often presents itself to the con- 

 sideration of the medical practitioner, M. Donne has discussed 

 at some length, and to it he replies thus. 



" The secretion of the mammary gland," he says, " is after 

 confinement in constant relation with the state which it pre- 

 sents during gestation, so that it is possible to know in ad- 

 vance, by the observation of its characters during the last 

 months of pregnancy, what its condition will be when it shall 

 have acquired all its activity after parturition." * This law, 

 he states, is so general that in the sixty observations which 

 he has made on women of all ages and temperaments, he has 

 met with but two or three exceptions. 



Pregnant women Donne divides into three classes, founded 

 upon the characters presented by the colostrum during the 

 last months of gestation. 



1st. Those in whom the secretion is small, and the viscous 

 liquid contains scarcely any milk globules, mixed with a 

 very few colostrum corpuscles. 



2nd. Those in whom the colostrum is more or less abun- 

 dant, but poor in milk globules, which are small, ill-formed, 

 and containing also colostrum and mucous corpuscles. 



3rd. Those in whom the colostrum is very abundant, rich 

 in milk globules, which are of good size, and unmixed with 

 any other corpuscles save those proper to the colostrum. 



Now the indications to be deduced from the different states 

 of the colostrum just described are 



That the first state appertains to women in whom the 

 secretion of milk after childbirth is either very little, or in 

 whom there is produced but a serous milk, poor in nutritive 

 elements, and therefore insufficient for the nourishment of 

 the child. 



That the second condition indicates those in whom the 

 secretion of milk after confinement is either small or abundant 

 in quantity, but which is always poor and serous. 



That the third state of the colostrum belongs only to such 

 women as have an abundant supply of milk of good quality. 



* Cours de Microscopie, p. 406. 



