Advice to a wife on the management of her own health : and on the treatment of some of the complaints incidental to pregnancy, labor, and suckling.
- Q52148313
- Date:
- 1871
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, labor, and suckling. 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.
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![Ballard, in his valuable little work before quoted, con- siders this to be the principal cause of a gathered breast; and, as the subject is of immense importance, I cannot do better than give it in his own words, more especially as he has the merit of originating and df bringing the subject prominently before his professional brethren. He says : This (mammary abscess or gath- ered breast) is another form of disease entirely refera- ble to the cause under consideration [fruitless sucking]. In the case last related, the formation of mammary abscess [gathered breast] was only just prevented by arresting any further irritation of the breast by suck- ling ; and since I have kept careful notes of my cases, I have observed that in all instances of abscess there has been abundant 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 [gathering]. Sometimes these measures are adopted to remove the milk when a woman is not going to suckle, and then an abscess not unfrequently is established. I have previously alluded to the mis-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21030480_0290.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
