416 



fill exciting cause of the determination of milk into the breasts j thru ir- 

 ritation, or any other of the same kind, issufficient to excite the secretion 

 of milk, even under circumstances not provided for by Nature. It is 

 thus that virgins have been enabled to suckle another mother's child ; 

 that young girls, under the age of puberty, have had so complete a secre- 

 tion of milk, as to furnish a considerable quantity of this fluid. There 

 have been known men, in whom a long continued titillation of the breasts 

 had determined so considerable an afflux of the humours, that there 

 oozed from them a whitish, milky, and saccharine fluid, not unlike the 

 milk of a woman. The sucking of the new-born child, is necessary to 

 keep up the secretion of milk in the mammae. It ceases to be formed in 

 them, when the child is committed to the care of a different nurse : the 

 mammae, at first turgid, soon collapse, especially if care have been taken 

 to determine the fluids downwards, by exhibiting gentle laxatives. 



The erection of the breasts, by titillation on the nipple, the spasmodic, 

 and almost convulsive, action which follows this kind of excitement, may 

 be carried so far as to produce an emission of the fluid to some distance. 

 While its excretion lasts, women experience, in their breasts, an agreea- 

 ble sensation ; these parts are tense and swollen ; they feel, as they express 

 it, the milk rising; several feel a sensation of extension reaching to the 

 axilla, to the arms and chest. The whole mass of cellular substance sur- 

 rounding the breasts and extending to the neighbouring parts, partakes 

 in their activity. 



The breasts, themselves,<:onsist, in great measure, of cellular substance? 

 an adipose and lymphatic layer, of a certain thickness, covers the gland, 

 vvhich is divided into several lobes, and incloses it within its substances. 

 They receive a number of nerves, but very few blood-vessels for their 

 bulk. 



Their structure appears almost wholly lymphatic ; the vessels of this 

 kind, after being distributed to the neighbouring glands, and especially 

 to those of the axilla, penetrate into the breasts, in which their propor- 

 tion, compared to that of the sanguineous vessels, is as eight to one. 

 These lymphatic vessels, which enter in considerable numbers into the 

 composition of the breasts, increase greatly in size in nurses ; and when 

 injected in this condition, it has been ascertained, that several of them 

 joined to form larger trunks, which, going towards the nipple, contribu- 

 ted in forming what are called the lactiferous tubes. If the lymphatic 

 vessels be immediately continuous with the excretory ducts of the breasts, 

 there is reason to believe, that it is these vessels which convey the mate- 

 rials of the fluid which they separate, especially if it be considered, how 

 small the number of minute arteries which are distributed into their tissue, 

 and what a disproportion there is between the calibre of these small ves- 

 sels, and the quantity of blood which the breasts supply. The opinion 

 that the lymphatic vessels bring to the breasts the materials of the secre- 

 tion of milk, is not in opposition to the laws of the circulation in the lym- 

 phatics; all who are acquainted with these laws, know that the course 

 of the lymph, though in general, from the circumference to the centre, 

 is naturally liable to a number of aberrations or deviations, facilitated by 

 the numberless anastomoses of these vessels. 



CCXXI. The granulated structure is not as apparent in the breasts, as 

 hi the other glandular organs, hence they bear a greater resemblance to 

 the lymphatic, than to the conglomerate glands. The milk which they 



