Advice to a wife on the management of her own health : and on the treatment of some of the complaints incidental to pregnancy, labour, and suckling; with an introductory chapter especially addressed to a young wife.

  • Q52148313
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Advice to a wife on the management of her own health : and on the treatment of some of the complaints incidental to pregnancy, labour, and suckling; with an introductory chapter especially addressed to a young wife. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    197/228 (page 179)
    evidence of a demand being made upon the gland for a supply of milk beyond that which it had the power of secreting. If the child only has been kept to the breast, then it has suffered with disordered bowels; but, in the majority of cases, an additional irritation has been applied; the commonly received doctrine, that a turgid breast is necessarily overloaded with milk, leads mothers and nurses to the use of breast pumps, exhausted bottles, or even the application of the powerful sucking powers of the nurse herself, to relieve the breasts of their supposed excess ; and it is this extraordinary irritation, which in the majority of cases, determines the formation of an abscess [gather- ing]. Sometimes these measures are adopted to re- move the milk when a woman is not going to suckle, and then an abscess not unfrequently is established. I have previously alluded to the mistake into which mothers and nurses are led by the appearance of a swollen breast; it is not evidence that the gland can secrete freely, and it is in this turgid state that the excessive irritation tells most severely. This hyper- aemic [plethoric] condition seems to be a step towards inflammation, and the irritation supplies that which is wanting to complete the process. If a woman will only remove the child from the breast directly the act of sucking produces pain, she may be pretty sure to avoid abscess. So long as the milk can be obtained there is no pain. The above most valuable ad- vice SHOULD BE STRICTLY FOLLOWED. 533. How is a patient to know that she is about to