A contribution to our knowledge of poisoning by aconite / by George H. Tucker.

  • Tucker, George Herriot.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to our knowledge of poisoning by aconite / by George H. Tucker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    3/22 (page 221)
    1854.] Smith on the Milk of t]i stated [Med.-Chir. HcviciA that he had paid considerable attention to this subject while attacliW fce^m~.office of nurses, and had arrived at the following conclusions : “ If the Senses reappear easily, without pain or derangement of the nurse’s health, while her milk is under 12 or 15 months, and the quantity of blood lost is normal and moderate, the quantity of milk does not become diminished, nor its qualities altered, and the child dods^not suffer from its use. If, however, the menses are too abundant or too frequent, the milk may diminish in quantity, or disappear. The same effect is also produced, though more slowly, in some days or weeks,, when the menses are prolonged for a week, so that the loss is considerable. The milk will much more certainly dry up if the menses reappear at an advanced period of lactation; this being thenVvthe * signal of the imperfection and approaching termination of the secretion. When the milk becomes thus diminished, it rarely exhibits tkirphysical characters of poor milk; but by its density, whiteness, and the excess in number and size of its globules, it more approache^in character and richness cow’s milk. When the menstrual epochs reappear with difficulty, and are attended with pain, indigestion, diarrhoea, &cy or are preceded or followed by leucorrhcea, the child may suffer symptoms due to indigestion, induced by the altered characters of the Wilk; the alteration of the milk chiefly consisting in increase in the number and size of the globules. These influences are, however, only temporary, and the milk soon recovers its normal character. The ailments which the child hence suffers are only temporary, and bfsve been greatly exaggerated.” It is not difficult to perceive the bearing which these observations have upon the explanation of the case above related. The menstrua- tion of the mother had always be^n irregular, being painful and often menorrhagic. On the occurrence the first menstrual period subse- quent to her confinement, and when at that period of the actual flow in which the greatest change i^tlie quality of the milk takes place, the child, though entirely healthy,Yet possessed of a nervous system like its mother, very susceptible' to impressions, whether external or internal, after a day or two of Wk restion, suddenly falls into convul- sions. On being taken from the breast it gradually recovers, but not completely. One month after, itsuffcrs a more severe attack of con- vulsions, the first of which occurred soon after the catamenial flow had commenced. Again taken from the breast, it recovered, but evidently was not as vigorous asS^efore. Three months after the first attack, and when seven months ohj, it experienced a return of convul- sions on the first accession ol the pain preceding the catamenia, which speedily proved fatal.