ARRESTED AND DEFICIENT LACTATION, 
AND 
THE NEURO-DYNAMIC INFLUENCE CONTROLLING 
THE SECRETION OF MILK. 
BY 
HENRY F, CAMPBELL, M. D., 
Augusta, Georgia. 
EXTRACTED FROM. ATLANTA MEDICAL 4ND SURGICAL JOURNAL, APRIL 1885. 
ATLANTA, GEORGIA: 
Jas. P. Harrison & Co., Printers and Publishers. 
1885, ARRESTED AND DEFICIENT LACTATION, 
AND 
THE NEURO-DYNAMIC INFLUENCE CONTROLLING 
THE SECRETION OF MILK. 
BY 
HENRY F. CAMPBELL, M. D., 
Augusta, Georgia. 
EXTRACTED FROM ATLANTA MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL, APRIL 1885. 
ATLANTA, GEORGIA; 
Jas. P. Harri»on & Go., Printers and Publishers. 
1885. ARRESTED AND DEFICIENT LACTATION. 
HENRY F. CAMPBELL, M. D., Augusta, Georgia. 
A failure in the adequate supply of milk for the proper and 
entire nourishment of the infant is, in modern times, a not infre- 
quent occurrence. Such deficiency is always disappointing to 
the mother and often calamitous to the child, by impairment of its 
nutrition, as artificial substitutes cannot be made in all cases to 
subserve the ends of the ordained and natural nutriment. 
For such deficiency, existing in a greater or less degree, 
tonics, malt liquors, nourishing diet and sometimes an oppressive 
amount of fluids, with perhaps warm and stimulating applica- 
tions to the mammas, are well known to be the staple resources 
of both the medical attendant and the experienced nurse. 
My own experience, as that of most practitioners, supplies a 
large number of deficient milk-supply, treated with varying 
results by these ordinary methods. Among my notes, however, 
there are two or three cases, one quite recent and others some years 
ago, in which the arrest of lactation was sudden and complete, 
after what had appeared to be a very satisfactory and full estab- 
lishment of the flow. The essential features of these cases I 
will briefly state, as the results obtained may prove of practical 
interest. 
Case I. Mrs. V. J. M., aged twenty years, in second child-bcd, 
September 22, 1875. Her primapara had been with forceps— 
living child—lactation imperfect, the child sustained by the bottle, 
was feeble and died in dentition. This second parturition natural, 
and there was a slight milk flow on the third day, continued scan- 
tily for one week, child being fed with the bottle. In another 
week the milk ceased entirely. Galvano-faradic mild current 
applied before bed time—one pole at nuclea and circle completed 
by hand on breasts for twenty minutes. The milk-flow became 4 
abundant during the night—“ clothing drenched ”by the sponta- 
neous flows. The milk continued for a few days, but in uncer- 
tain quantities, and then ceased, to the bitter disappointment of the 
mother. The battery was again applied repeatedly, but causing 
no adequate supply, the patient became discouraged, and it was 
abandoned, as the child was doing well on the bottle. 
Case 11. Mrs. R. M. W., aged twenty-three years, was in her 
third child-bed in 1878. Labor had been easy and natural. Lac- 
tation was fully and rather profusely established on the third day, 
and continued abundant for over a week. On one of my morn- 
ing visits I was informed that she thought her milk had ceased 
to flow, that it had sensibly diminished for the past two days, and 
that now none could be obtained, and the child was being fed 
from the bottle. The breasts were, both of them flabby, and 
both areolae pale. The lochia were natural and she felt no par- 
ticular discomfort in the pelvic region. She was without fever, 
but had lost her appetite entirely, and had a depressed and mel- 
ancholy look, and complained of slight frontal headache, the 
bowels and kidneys acting naturally; urine not tested. Mrs. W. 
had drunk freely of table tea and other fluids, hoping to recover 
her milk-flow, without any result whatever. 
I directed warm fomentations to the mammas and a weak sin- 
apism to dorsal and cervical spine, with milk punch and continu- 
ance of the fluids. Finding no change on my call next day, and 
being at that time in frequent application of the battery to certain 
cases, I proposed the application of a mild electric current. 
Though somewhat startled at the proposition, she willingly sub- 
mitted. 
The galvano-faradic current was made in the following man- 
ner: One pole of the battery—my notes do not record which— 
was held in the hand of the patient and the other in my own 
right hand, while with the left I completed the connection by 
alternately passing the hand over the two mammae. The 
strength of the current was low, but could be gradually 
increased without complaint from the patient. It was continued 
for twenty minutes. She stated that “ she had a more natural 5 
feeling in her breast now than she had had for several days,” 
and she evidently expected much from the unusual procedure. 
On calling the day after the application, she requested that I 
would apply the battery again, and stated that she had felt “ the 
springing of milk ” in her breasts, and nursed the child and 
thought he had sucked a little milk. The application was made 
as before. A full flow of milk returned during the night. On 
the following day the breasts were fully distended, and to the end 
of lactation, there was no variation from the full and abundant 
supply which had marked her first nursing periods and that of 
her children born subsequently. 
Case 111. Mrs. B. E. F., aged 21—first birth January 24th, 
1885. Natural; no incidents during parturition; lactation estab- 
lished on third day in normal manner; nipple not well developed; 
and child nursing imperfectly, the breast became painfully dis- 
tended. The breast-pump, and then a young puppy, was used 
to empty the breasts. The full flow continued four days. In 
one week from the birth of the child the milk began to fail. At 
the end of the next week it had entirely ceased. The mammary 
glands were hanging shrunken and soft, at which the lady 
seemed more annoyed than at the loss of the milk. “ Her 
breasts had never looked that way before in all her life!” 
I applied as in the above case the electric current from one of 
Jerome Kidder’s batteries. The application lasted twenty min- 
utes to a mild degree. The patient within an hour remarked 
that she was not certain, but thought she felt the milk springing 
in one of her breasts. During the night, twelve hours after, the 
distention was very decided, and the breast-pump being applied, 
one ounce or more was drawn and the child applied to the 
breast. On the day following, the child not nursing sufficiently, 
the pump had to be twice applied to relieve the painful dis- 
tention. 
The application of the current in this case was made daily by 
the husband, for one week, during which the secretion continued 
in full quantity. The use of the battery was then abandoned, 
when, to the disappointment of all, the milk rapidly failed again, 
and none was secreted. On its re-application “ a decided effect 6 
was produced, but not so remarkable as at first.” To-day 
(March 6th) I am informed that the not acting well, has 
been discontinued for over a week, and that the flow of milk has 
almost ceased. 
In this second case, though not so fortunate in its final results 
as in case first, the influence of the galvanic current in awaken- 
ing the milk secretion seemed more marked, as repeated oppor- 
tunities were afforded for observing the effect of both its appli- 
cation and withholding. Unlike the first case, this lady through- 
out the entire period continued in good health and spirits, and in 
every respect her general condition was as comfortable and 
favorable as could be desired—except in the failure of lactation, 
I have advised that a mild daily current be again resumed, with 
dry-cupping to the cervical and dorsal spine, and nourishing fluid 
diet, in the hope that the secretion may again possibly be 
aroused. 
the: neuro-dynamic influences affecting the mammary 
GLAND AND LACTATION. 
It is almost unavoidable, in considering the effect of such an agent 
as electricity or galvanism on any function, whether that function 
be sensory, motor, secretory or trophic, that we have suggested to 
our minds the nervous influences and instrumentalities that are in- 
volved, or supposed to be involved, in the rationale of all such 
procedures. 
To those who claim—and generally it may perhaps be justly 
claimed—that for each of the vital acts occurring in any portion 
of the system there is required a nerve-force of a specific kind 
and having its source and origin in nerve-centres unvarying in 
their kind and location; as, for instance, vision recognized in the 
optic lobes, olfaction with its special centre, pulmonary respiration 
with the invariable termination of its nervous apparatus centrally 
in the “respiratory tract” of the spinal cord, while the medulla 
oblongata has been proved experimentally to influence the glyco- 
genic function of the liver, and to modify the secretion and con- 
stituents of the urine (Claude Bernard); and further, more 
recently, contention is made and largely prevails, that the con- 
volutions can be located (Farrier, Bartholow, Hitzig and others) 7 
on which special muscular acts depend for their dynamic and 
coordinating influence: “To such,” as I had begun to say, the 
mammary gland and its functional phenomena are a stumbling- 
block and a confusion. A gland varying little in its histological 
structure, with a secretory product analogous, at least, if not 
almost identical throughout the entire class to which it gives its 
designation, the supreme intent and purpose to which it is ap- 
pointed, always the same; governed and controlled by direct 
nervous influences, apparently, as other secretory organs are sup- 
posed to be governed, and perhaps more than any one of them, 
disturbed b}" reflex influences* of the most marked, peculiar and 
invariable character, and yet seeming to derive, so far as we can 
judge by locality of the gland itself, its nervous supply and its 
neuro-dynamic excitation and control, from no one particular por- 
tion of either brain, spinal cord or ganglionic centre. Not to 
look through the long line of the mammalians, let us point out a 
few variations in the location of the gland; In the human female, 
and others of the higher class, they are double, and located on 
the upper and front aspect of the thorax; in some quadrupeds, 
as the horse, the ass, cow, goat, sheep, and many others not so 
familiar, near the groin and at the pelvic end of the trunk; while 
in others of this latter class, as the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the 
sowr, and other multiparious animals, the mammary apparatus is 
multiple and ranged in a double row at intervals from the thora- 
cic to the pelvic end of the trunk. Like cutaneous transpiration 
and other elementary functions of the skin, then it appears to be 
a matter of indifference from what particular portion of the cen- 
tral nervous system or region of the spinal cord, the mammary 
gland and the lacteal secretion derive the neuro-dynamic influence, 
if, as some may suggest, any such influence whatever controls and 
♦“The intimate relations subsisting between the mammary gland and the uterus, whether non- 
gravid, gravid or puerperal, are too well recognized and familiar for any extended comment. The 
breasts develop under the advance of puberty, they enlarge and become tender during menstruation, 
they color their areola; after conception; while, during pregnancy and after labor, the relation is 
even still more striking and mutual. The nursing infant excites painful, but often beneficial, uterine 
contractions, and the uterine processes seem intimately connected with the establishment of lacta- 
tion. All the above phenomena, heretofore ignorantly attributed to “sympathy,” are now recog- 
nized as the result of normal reflexes in the spinal cord.” # 
See Prophylactic and Therapeutic Value of Quinine in Gynectic and Obstetric Practice. By Henry 
F. Campbell, Amer. Gynecological Transactions, vol. V. Cincinnati, 1881. 8 
directs the process. This innervation and nerve-force seems to 
be of the simplest kind, and can be no other and not differing 
from that which controls and governs the functional activities of 
every kind which are exercised by the general integument of the 
body. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
First.—That from a consideration of the varying locality of the 
mammary gland upon the trunk of the several genera of mam- 
malia, the nervous supply being furnished indifferently by any 
portion of the central spinal system; the object and the efficiency 
of the secretion being the same in all of them as in man; and 
especially from the known fact that anomolies in women have 
transferred the gland to abnormal localities, as the groin, etc., it 
may be decided that the neuro-dynamic excitation in the mammae 
of the human female is of the simplest nature, and no other than 
that under which the functions of the integument, as sensation 
and secretion are accomplished. 
Second.—After the foregoing conclusion in regard to the 
simplicity of the neuro-dynamic influences concerned in the func- 
tion of lactation, and in the light of the experience of the cases 
herein reported, we may reasonably expect the stimulus of a well 
selected and judiciously applied electric or galvanic current to 
prove, in many cases of arrested and deficient lactation, a hope- 
ful and often an efficient therapeutic measure. 
March 6, 1885.