Part 25

The following cases, as well as others, are extracted from my Note Book.

Footnote 11:

Mr. Robertson of Manchester inquired minutely into the result of one hundred and sixty cases, in which he found that eighty-one women had become pregnant once or oftener during suckling.

Footnote 12:

Dr. Heberden was acquainted with a lady who never ceased to have regular returns of the menses during four pregnancies, quite to the time of her delivery.—Heberden Commentaries.

This opinion is confirmed by Gardien, Dewees, Hamilton, Desormeaux, Puzos, Francis, &c.

Footnote 13:

“A woman came to me one morning,” says Dr. Gooch, “with a note from a medical man, containing the following statement: The patient’s age was forty-two; she had been married twenty-two years without ever being pregnant. About seven months ago she had ceased to menstruate; a few months afterwards the abdomen began to enlarge, and was now nearly equal to that of full pregnancy. For several months the practitioner had been using various means for reducing the tumour, but in vain. I examined the case, pronounced her pregnant, and seven weeks afterward she brought forth a child at the full time.”

Dr. Montgomery says: “A lady in her forty-third year, who was married to her present husband twenty years ago, remained without any promise of offspring until within the last few months; but having missed her menstruation in September last, and finding her size increasing, I was requested to see her in January, when she exhibited evident symptoms of pregnancy. She was subsequently delivered of a healthy boy, after a natural labor of about four hours.”

Mosse, one of the medical officers of the Dublin Lying-in-Hospital in 1775, states, that eighty-four of the women delivered in the Institution under his superintendence were between the ages of forty-one and fifty-four; four of these were in the fifty-first year, and one in her fifty-fourth.

In May, 1816, Mrs. Ashley, wife of John Ashley, grazier, of Frisby, at the age of fifty-four years was delivered of two female children.

The succession to an estate was disputed in France because the mother was fifty-eight years old when the child was born. The decision was in favour of the fact.

Footnote 14:

It may, however, be considered almost a settled fact, that when a female has menstruated regularly up to the time of cohabitation, and immediately after ceases to menstruate at the time of their usual return, especially if attended with morning sickness—that pregnancy has taken place.

Footnote 15:

Cours de Méd. Légale, p. 52.

Footnote 16:

North of Eng. Med. and Surg. Journ., vol. i., p. 230.

That the presence of milk in the female breast shall take place independent of pregnancy, from the above and other recorded facts, there can be no doubt; but the following beautiful exemplification of its formation in that of the male, places the question in a still stronger light. This interesting fact is cited from Captain Franklin’s narrative of his journey to the shores of the Polar Sea.

“A young Chipewyan had separated from the rest of his band, for the purpose of entrapping beaver, when his wife, who was his sole companion, and in her first pregnancy, was seized with her pains of labor. She died on the third day, after giving birth to a boy. The husband was inconsolable, and vowed in his anguish, never to take another woman to wife; but his grief was soon in some degree absorbed in anxiety for the fate of his infant son. To preserve its life he descended to the office of a nurse, so degrading in the eyes of a Chipewyan, as partaking of the duties of a woman. He swaddled it in soft moss, fed it with broth made from the flesh of the deer; and to still its cries, applied it to his breast, praying earnestly to the Great Master of Life to assist his endeavors. The force of the powerful passion by which he was actuated produced the same effect in his case as it has done in some others which are recorded: a flow of milk actually took place from his breast. He succeeded in rearing his child, taught him to be a hunter, and when he attained the age of manhood, chose him a wife from the tribe. The old man kept his vow in never taking a wife for himself, but he delighted in tending his son’s children; and when his daughter-in-law used to interfere, saying, that it was not the occupation of a man, he was wont to reply, that he had promised the Great Master of Life, if his child was spared, never to be proud like other Indians. Our informant, Mr. Wenkel (one of the Association) added, that he had often seen this Indian in his old age, and that his left breast, even then, retained the unusual size it had acquired in his occupation of nurse.” P. 157.

Man possesses the same organization as woman for secreting and conveying milk, which enables us readily both to understand and believe in the truth of the foregoing singular statement.

Footnote 17:

I have found a Burgundy pitch plaster, the surface of which has been well sprinkled with powdered opium, an admirable application to the pit of the stomach. In many cases the nausea has been soon relieved, and the irritability of the stomach subdued.

Footnote 18:

A teaspoonful of pulverized prepared charcoal in a tablespoonful of lime-water, is oftentimes very useful in these cases.

Footnote 19:

Seidlitz powders with a little syrup of ginger are frequently efficient, particularly if followed by a large draught of pure water. Many who have taken the Seidlitz powders with little or no effect, would be surprised at their efficacy, if one or two tumblers of water be taken immediately afterwards.

Footnote 20: