Remarks on the Subject of Lactation | Page 9

and thus, in addition to the direct excitement of disease, it becomes indirectly its predisposing cause. Under its influence the serous[L] and mucous membranes become readily the seat of inflammatory action.'
Those who feel a difficulty in relinquishing old opinions and adopting new views upon any particular subject, may perhaps ask how it has happened, if inflammation of the brain from protracted suckling be so common as the preceding observations and cases would appear to prove, that medical men of more advanced age and far greater experience than myself have not previously noticed the circumstance. I would observe, in reply, that until Harvey pointed out the circulation of the blood, no one ever suspected the existence of such a phenomenon; yet now the wonder appears to be, not that Harvey made the discovery, but that others had not previously done the same. Multitudes, it may be added, and among them the great Newton, had witnessed the fall of objects to the ground without thinking of the cause which produced their downward tendency; the propitious moment, however, arrived--the apple fell, and the philosopher was led to those deductions which have rendered his name immortal. So is it with observers of every class, from those most distinguished by intellectual superiority and its successful application, down to the humble writer of the present observations. Facts are continually passing before us unnoticed, till, from their repeated coincidence, or some accidental impulse, we attempt, and finally are enabled, to trace their origin.
Thus, until the possibility of Meningitis originating from protracted lactation had been suggested, practitioners were, of course, unable to notice the fact--not from its non-occurrence, but because their unconsciousness of its existence must necessarily preclude the inquiries from which alone its cause could be determined. Hence a practitioner may have treated many hundred cases of water on the brain in children, without being able to attribute any one of them to protracted suckling; yet this is no proof that such cases did not happen, for, had he made the requisite inquiries, very probably many among them might have been found which had thus arisen.
Another objection that may possibly be made to my views, is, that instances might be adduced where lactation had been persevered in for a very long period, without any ill effects supervening. That such frequently occur, there is no doubt; and with respect to them, I have merely to observe, that they do not in the slightest degree invalidate the correctness of my conclusions. As well might it be argued, that because persons have fallen from a very great height without sustaining any injury, or, because poisonous doses of various drugs have sometimes been swallowed without death supervening, that, therefore, there is no danger in jumping from a precipice, or in taking a virulent poison; or that death never occurs from these causes. Such cases, unless far more numerous than I imagine them, can only be regarded as exceptions to the general rule; and, consequently, do not lessen its authority, there being no rule without an exception.
Some practitioners, with whom I have conversed on the subject, though willing to allow that protracted suckling, by depraving the milk, may be the means of occasioning Meningitis in infants during or shortly after the time they are supplied with this improper food, yet could not conceive how it can act as a cause of that disease at some future period; I do not myself, while attempting to account for it, discover any pathological difficulty.
In these cases it is very probable, that although the protracted suckling was not sufficient to produce actual Meningitis at its conclusion, yet that it so weakened the system in general, and the brain in particular, as to render the latter especially predisposed to inflammatory action; and that we have reason to suppose this not only possible, but probable, from analogy, cannot be denied, since it is known that scrofulous children, in whom there is great laxity and debility of habit, are inordinately liable to be affected with Hydrocephalus, or Water in the Brain.
'Dr. Perceval observes, that of twenty-two cases of which he kept notes, eleven were certainly strumous children, and four were probably so.' 'From my own observations,' remarks Dr. Cheyne, 'I should think this proportion a very moderate one. When a whole family is swept away by Hydrocephalus, I suspect it is intimately connected with this strumous taint.' The testimony of Sauvages may also be adduced, who says, 'Novi familiam cujus infantes circa sextum ?tatis annum omnes periere ex hoc morbo, Scrofula huic effusioni ansam pr?bente.' The brain, in consequence of this local debility, may become affected from causes which otherwise would, perhaps, have produced no injurious consequences whatever; and hence it is, that when labouring under other diseases, and especially Hooping-cough, those children who have been suckled too long