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No woman is sound, healthy, and complete unless she possesses breasts that are beautiful enough to hold the promise of being functional when the time for their exercise arrives, and nipples that can give suck. The gravity of this question to-day is shown by the frequency with which women are lacking in this essential element of womanhood, and the young man of to-day, it has been said, often in taking a wife, "actually marries but part of a woman, the other part being exhibited in the chemist's shop window, in the shape of a glass feeding-bottle." Blacker found among a thousand patients from the maternity department of University College Hospital that thirty-nine had never suckled at all, seven hundred and forty-seven had suckled all their children, and two hundred and fourteen had suckled only some. The chief reason given for not suckling was absence or insufficiency of milk; other reasons being inability or disinclination to suckle, and refusal of the child to take the breast (Blacker, Medical Chronicle, Feb., 1900). These results among the London poor are certainly very much better than could be found in many manufacturing towns where women work after marriage. In the other large countries of Europe equally unsatisfactory results are found. In Paris Madame Dluska has shown that of 209 women who came for their confinement to the Clinique Baudelocque, only 74 suckled their children; of the 135 who did not suckle, 35 were prevented by pathological causes or absence of milk, 100 by the necessities of their work. Even those who suckled could seldom continue more than seven months on account of the physiological strain of work (Dluska, Contribution

He investigated 732 successive confinements at the Clinique Baudelocque in Paris. Again, comparing groups of women who rested during pregnancy, it was found that the women accustomed to fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,319 grammes, while those accustomed to less fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,318 grammes.

It is true that some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious.

The child was reticent, and with a doll was inclined to play the role of mother. Baudelocque mentions a girl of eight who suckled her brother with her extraordinarily developed breasts. In 1783 this child milked her breasts in the presence of the Royal Academy at Paris. Belloc spoke of a similar case.

It is true that some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious.

I will devote seven lines to these seven pages, which seven lines, if I may say it without offence, are, as it seems to me, six more than are strictly necessary. The following authors are cited as sceptics by Dr. Meigs: Dewees. I cited the same passage. Did not know half the facts. Robert Lee. Believes the disease is sometimes communicable by contagion. Tonnelle, Baudelocque. Both cited by me.

Pinard, the greatest of authorities on puericulture, asserts that there must be complete cessation of sexual intercourse during the whole of pregnancy, and in his consulting room at the Clinique Baudelocque he has placed a large placard with an "Important Notice" to this effect.

It is true that some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious.

It mentions, fairly enough, the names of sceptics, or unbelievers as to the reality of personal transmission; of Dewees, of Tonnelle, of Duges, of Baudelocque, and others; of course, not including those whose works were then unwritten or unpublished; nor enumerating all the Continental writers who, in ignorance of the great mass of evidence accumulated by British practitioners, could hardly be called well informed on this subject.

It mentions, fairly enough, the names of sceptics, or unbelievers as to the reality of personal transmission; of Dewees, of Tonnelle, of Duges, of Baudelocque, and others; of course, not including those whose works were then unwritten or unpublished; nor enumerating all the Continental writers who, in ignorance of the great mass of evidence accumulated by British practitioners, could hardly be called well informed on this subject.