Aconite. The mammae are congested, burning hot, hard and distended, with little or no milk.
Agnus c. Frequently indicated, particularly when a despairing sadness is the predominant symptom.
Asa f. When there is excessive sensibility of the vital organism; and the veins are unnaturally distended. More or less frequently indicated.
Belladonna. The breasts feel large and heavy. Headache, and the eyes are congested. She does not sleep well; she lies half sleeping and half walking, between the two.
Bryonia. Dry, cracked lips; dry mouth; constipation, as if the feces were burst. No appetite; nausea after eating.
Calcarea c. In leucophlegmatic constitutions. Rather of a chilly nature. Menses had been too often and too profuse; usually subject to leucorrhoea.
Causticum. When, as an attendant symptom, threatened amaurosis exists. Pulsations and noises in the cases. Anxiety and despondency.
Chamomilla. When the mammae are hard and tender to the touch, with drawing pains. Insulting, cross and uncivil in temper.
China. Where there is debility from loss of animal fluids, particularly blood, or from diarrhoea, or leucorrhoea. Much pain between the shoulders.
Coffea. Much excitability and sleeplessness.
Dulcamara. Particularly when there has been suppression from exposure to the cold and damp air. The milk is scanty; the skin is delicate and sensitive to cold, and liable to eruptions from being exposed to the cold.
Mercurius sol. Milk scanty, with scorbutic-gums, swelling of the glands, &c.
Phosph. acid. Scanty milk, debility and great apathy.
Pulsatilla. In mild and tearful females, in apparent good health, who have but little milk. This remedy is often called for in this affection.
Rhus t. Entire want of appetite, mental derangement and thoughts of suicide. Vitiated lochia, lasting too long; and powerlessness of the lower extremities.
Secale c. In females who are much exhausted from venous hemorrhage. In thin, scrawny females. The breasts do not properly fill with milk; there is much stinging in them.
Sulphur. Flushes of heat; weak and faint spells; heat on the top of the head; cold feet; very faint and hungry at about noon, she cannot wait for her dinner, &c.
If the milk seems abundant, and yet the child does not thrives, the fault may be in the mother, or it may be in the child. Administer, according to your best judgment, such remedies to the mother as Calcarea c., China, Cina, Mercurius, or Sulphur; and to the child, Calcarea c., according to the particular indications and conditions.
GALACTORRHOEA AND EXCESSIVE LACTATION.
In cases of spontaneous flow of milk, keeping the breasts constantly wet, relief from such an uncomfortable state may be obtained by the appropriate remedy, according to the indications given below. The function of lactation, being one purely physiological, and provided for in the economy by suitable forces, under the stimulus of the maternal instinct and affection, most women enjoy perfect health during its continuance. Many indeed are never so well as when giving suck to their children. Under the influence of this process there arises a greater activity of all the assimilative functions at the same time, and in conjunction with a greater strength of appetite and corresponding energy of the digestive powers. The process of conversion of food is unusually rapid; the excess going to form the milk. Where a greater amount is thus formed than is required, the system becomes gradually exhausted, even in health, just as the preparation of a less amount may overtask the system when in a condition already enfeeble. This over-production in the former case may be due simply to excess of vitality; white in the latter case it may result from a corresponding effort of nature to supply the required material support, even under difficulties.
But there are cases in which an excess of the secretion of the milk seems just as much the result of some interior morbid condition, as its more or less complete failure would be. This is especially seen in the intimate relation which such excessive flow of milk, or, what for all practical purposes amounts to the same thing, undue lactation, bears to insanity. And in the following extract from the excellent work of Tyler Smith, the reader will see the injurious effects which may arise from excessive lactation, of either sort; and learn to anticipate the mischief from the first symptoms.
“The case of insanity which occur as the result of undue lactation, are very similar to cases of puerperal insanity, only that their symptoms come on in a more gradual manner. When nursing women complain of loss of sight or hearing, or headache, wither their nourishment and stimulus should be increased, or suckling should be at once discontinued. Where there is any predisposition to insanity, mothers should not, if possible, be allowed to suckle their children. In all cases of this kind, the dependence of the mania upon exhaustion is abundantly evident. It is especially likely to happen when pregnancy and lactation are allowed to proceed simultaneously.
“There are in the subjects of this from of disease the same suicidal and homicidal tendencies as in puerperal insanity. I once met with a case in which a mother, delivered of twins, became affected in her mind from suckling, and a wet-nurse was procured in the person of a young girl who had given birth to an illegitimate child. She had nursed her own infant for some time, and then, while being drained by the twins, again became pregnant. Signs of insanity manifested themselves, and she was one day found dead, hanging behind the door of her room. This from of insanity comes on weeks or months after the close of lactation. I have no doubt that the woman Brough, who killed, two or three years since, several of her children at Esher, and who is now a confirmed lunatic at Bethlehem, and suffered from over- lactation. She had weaned a child not long before the dreadful tragedy, had complained of loss of sight and severe nervous disorder, and has suffered in her head in previous lactations. The preventive treatment in this form of insanity consists, of course, in weaning as soon as any marked signs of nervous disorder are perceived. In the management of such cases, great care in guarding the patient is necessary, and the treatment of this disease must be a supporting and stimulating one, combined with perfect rest, and the avoidance, as far as possible, of all moral and physical excitement.
Thus galactorrhoea, or excessive or undue lactation, is seen to be capable of producing the most destructive results in the mental and physical economy. The symptoms which indicate that lactation is morbidly affecting the mother, are: “A sinking and fainting at the epigastrium, with a sense of emptiness, which lasts a long time, and soon returns even after food has been taken; a general weariness and fatigue; a want of refreshment from sleep, an aching and dragging in the loins, and pain between the blade-bones, or in the side, beneath the left breast; distressing exhaustion after the infant has been at the breast; the pulse is quick and feeble; the extremities cod; there are dyspnoea and palpitation on making the least exertion, or ascending the stairs. If the cause is continued, headache and vertigo, noises in the ears, numbness of the extremities, impaired vision, exciting fears of amaurosis, loss of memory, irritability and despondency, with thirst, dryness of the tongue, and night perspiration ensue. Pulmonary consumption may be developed; the general appearances of anaemia, menorrhagia, leucorrhoea, oedema of the face and extremities, and neuralgic affections of various kinds supervene, and mania has not frequently formed the the sequel. Thus organic disease of the brain, lungs and uterus, may be added to the evils attendant on undue lactation. Leadam.
Except in the most extreme cases of exhaustion from excessive flow of milk, or protracted lactation, we do not advise the use of any other stimulus than the appropriate remedy. They away be cases in which a little wine may be temporarily useful; but rest, cessation from nursing, and, if necessary, from tall the care of the child in any way, suitable food, and the truly Homoeopathic remedy, will do all that art can accomplish to restore exhausted nature.
In cases of galactorrhoea, or excessive spontaneous flow of the milk, use according to the particular attending symptoms and conditions: Belladonna, Bryonia, Borax, Calcarea c., China, Conium, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Rhus, or Stramonium.
In cases of deterioration of health from nursing; undue or protracted lactation, where appear debility, loss of appetite, hectic fever, night sweats, &c., study Calcarea carbonica na phosphorica, China, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Phosph. acid, Sulphur, &c.
Cramps in the stomach, from nursing may require Carbo animalis, Carbo veget., or China.
For great sense of emptiness, in the pit of the stomach from nursing, study Carbo animal, Sepia, Ignatia, and Oleander.
MASTITIS-INFLAMMATION OF THE BREASTS.
