In structure, the breast is a conglomerate gland, and consists of lobes which are held together by a dense and firm cellular tissue; the lobes are composed of lobules, and the lobules of minute cæcal vesicles, the ultimate terminations of the excretory ducts.
Near the center of each breast there is a small projection of the tegumentary coverings, constituting what is called the nipple; this is surrounded by an areola or border, having a colored tint.
Before conception, this areola is of a pink color; after conception it assumes a brownish hue, which deepens in color as pregnancy advances. This brownish tint continues through life.
About the nipple there are a considerable number of sebaceous follicles, which secrete a peculiar fatty or oily substance for the protection of the delicate skin about the part. During the period of nursing, these follicles become increased in size, having the appearance of pimples projecting from the skin. The sebaceous or fatty secretion from these follicles serve, during lactation, to shield the delicate part from the action of the saliva of the child’s mouth.
The milk-tubes, or excretory ducts, as they are anatomically named, are usually ten to fifteen in number; and as many as twenty-one is said to have been found in a single breast. These tubes commence by small openings at the apex of the nipple, and passed inward parallel with each other toward the central part of the breast, at which place they become enlarged, and branch off in every direction throughout the mammary gland; these communicate in some way with the blood-vessels of the part, and, by a peculiar and wonderful provision of nature, the milk is formed from the blood within them. Among and about the milk-tubes, there are many adipose cells, more or less numerous, and more or less filled in different cases, giving to the part its peculiar rotundity and softness.
The milk-tubes are capable of supplying a quantity of milk greater or less, as the case may be. With some persons, an immense quantity is secreted; at a single time a pint or more of milk may be drawn with a breast-tube from a single breast. But we are not to suppose that all this amount of milk is contained within the ducts at the time we commence drawing it; a small portion may be there, but the greater part is secreted after we commence. After a time the power of the gland to produce it being exhausted, the milk ceases to flow; but after nature has been allowed to rest an hour or two, it again recovers its milk-giving power, and is ready to furnish it liberally, as before. A good cow has an udder, which, if we were to cut it off, could readily be put into a small pail; and yet this same cow is capable of giving milk enough at a single milking to fill two or three pails of the same size. This shows us how admirably fitted these organs are for pouring out that material which is so necessary for the sustenance of the young: a material, simple as it may appear, yet one which art and science, with all their boasted pretensions, cannot at all imitate. The chemist can tell us that milk is composed of a mixture of water, albumen, casein, and oil, which we call cream; but all the chemists in the world cannot make a drop of milk, or any thing that, in physiological properties, will at all compare with it.
The breasts are abundantly supplied with nerves and blood-vessels, and it must be evident that so great a functional power as that which is exerted by the mammary gland during lactation, must be supported by a great quantity of blood and nervous force. Hence it is, that during nursing, the breasts are supplied with a much larger amount of blood, and are much larger in volume than at other times. In this wonderful fact, as in many others of the living body, we see the ever-beautiful order of nature, in adapting her means to her ends. If every thing happened by chance, we might just as soon find the breasts containing less blood when milk is needed, as more. But the doctrine of chance is too palpably absurd to need comment.
Symptoms of Inflammation of the Breast.—A day or two, or a few days after delivery, we often find the patient apparently so well and in such good spirits that we conclude there is no further need of our attentions. But in a day or two more we are sent for in great haste perhaps. We go, and find the patient downcast, dispirited, and evidently enough sick. We inquire as to what has been the matter. The patient tells us she has been attacked with a chill, in spite of which she could not get warm for one or two hours, or perhaps longer; just such a chill as would be experienced in the coming on of an ague, or any other fever, or some inflammation.
“Inflammation of the breast,” according to a very accurate writer, Dr. Burns, “may be divided into three species, according to its seat—the sub-cutaneous cellular substance, the fascia, and the glandular substance.
“It may take place at any period of nursing, but is most readily excited within a month after delivery. It may be caused by the direct application of cold, engorgement from milk, the irritation of excoriated nipples, mental agitation, etc. Some have the breasts prodigiously distended when the milk first comes, and the hardness extends even to the axillæ. If, in these cases, the nipple be flat, or the milk does not run freely, the fascia partially, in some habits, rapidly inflames. Others are more prone to have the dense substance, in which the acini and ducts are imbedded, or the acini themselves, inflamed.