It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity
of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a
nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a
connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in
the stimulating action of the breasts on the sexual organs. But
that there is a more direct channel of communication even than
the nervous system is shown by the fact that the secretion of
milk will take place at parturition, even when the nervous
connection has been destroyed. Mironoff found that, when the
mammary gland is completely separated from the central nervous
system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still continued.
In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition and
after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally
(_Archives des Sciences Biologiques_, St. Petersburg, 1895,
summarized in _L'Annee Biologique_; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert,
again, cut out the mammary gland of a young rabbit and
transplanted it into the ear; five months after the rabbit bore
young and the gland secreted milk freely. The case has been
reported of a woman whose spinal cord was destroyed by an
accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebrae,
yet lactation was perfectly normal (_British Medical Journal_,
August 5, 1899, p.
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