GALEN ON BREAST-FEEDING

Galen (130-200 AD), the founder of experimental physiology, stands second only to Hippocrates in importance during the ancient period of Greek medicine. His writings dominated medicine until the time of Versalius.

In his De Sanitate Tuenda, or Hygiene, Galen gave the following advice about breast-feeding.¹

I order all women who are nursing babies to abstain completely from sex relations. For menstruation is provoked by intercourse, and the milk no longer remains sweet. Moreover some women become pregnant, than which nothing could be worse for the suckling infant. For in this case the best of the blood goes to the foetus. For the latter, which has in it the intrinsic principle of life, is governed thereby, and constantly draws its proper nourishment, is as if immovably rooted to the uterus night and day. Meantime the blood of the pregnant naturally becomes less and of inferior quality, so that not only less, but inferior, milk collects in the breasts; so that if a nursing mother should become pregnant, I should strongly advise that another nurse should be procured, thinking and considering that her milk would be better in taste, appearance, and odor. For to those tasting and smelling it, the best milk is sweet, looks white, and is midway between thin and thick. But poor milk is either thick and cheesy, or watery, thin, and livid, variable in consistency and color, and sour to the taste, and will give the impression of brine or some other extraneous quality, and is not sweet to the smell.