The diseases of the breast, and their treatment / by John Birkett.

  • Birkett, John, 1815-1904.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of the breast, and their treatment / by John Birkett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    breast gives, in the illustration, an appearance of a third nipple. All the nipples are surrounded by well-marked areolae; but those of the true breasts are of a much darker tint than the others. From some superstitious feeling, this woman could never be prevailed upon to nurse any of her infants at the smaller breasts, though, from the preceding details, it may be fairly inferred that they would have afforded a considerable amount of nutriment. The woman was the daughter of a small farmer in the county of Kildare. None of her relatives had ever presented any anomalous condition of the mammas; of this she is positively certain, for the most anxious inquiries were instituted on the subject by herself. She never had more than one child at a birth; all her labours were natural; and the generative organs, so far as can be ascertained by a vaginal examination, are per- fectly normal. She says the supernumerary breasts were first discovered about the period of puberty, and that they have enlarged in proportion to the true breasts during pregnancy and lactation. When the process of nursing is discontinued, they speedily diminish in size, and produce little or no inconvenience in their flaccid condition. The editor adds—We have just been informed by Dr. Santisson, of Stockholm, that an instance of four mammary glands in the male was seen in Sweden some years ago, and that an account of it has been published in the Proceedings of the Swedish Medical Society/''—Dublin Quarterly Journ. of Med. Science, Feb. 1848, p. 266. DISEASES OF THE BREAST OF THE ADULT FEMALE. We now proceed to the description of those diseases