Instances of Men Suckling Infants.--These instances of gynecomazia are particularly interesting when the individuals display ability to suckle infants. Hunter refers to a man of fifty who shared equally with his wife the suckling of their children. There is an instance of a sailor who, having lost his wife, took his son to his own breast to quiet him, and after three or four days was able to nourish him. Humboldt describes a South American peasant of thirty-two who, when his wife fell sick immediately after delivery, sustained the child with his own milk, which came soon after the application to the breast; for five months the child took no other nourishment. In Franklin's "Voyages to the Polar Seas" he quotes the instance of an old Chippewa who, on losing his wife in childbirth, had put his infant to his breast and earnestly prayed that milk might flow;he was fortunate enough to eventually produce enough milk to rear the child. The left breast, with which he nursed, afterward retained its unusual size. According to Mehliss some missionaries in Brazil in the sixteenth century asserted that there was a whole Indian nation whose women had small and withered breasts, and whose children owed their nourishment entirely to the males.
Hall exhibited to his class in Baltimore a negro of fifty-five who had suckled all his mistress' family. Dunglison reports this case in 1837, and says that the mammae projected seven inches from the chest, and that the external genital organs were well developed. Paullini and Schenck cite cases of men suckling infants, and Blumenbach has described a male-goat which, on account of the engorgement of the mammae, it was necessary to milk every other day of the year.
Ford mentions the case of a captain who in order to soothe a child's cries put it to his breast, and who subsequently developed a full supply of milk. He also quotes an instance of a man suckling his own children, and mentions a negro boy of fourteen who secreted milk in one breast. Hornor and Pulido y Fernandez also mention similar instances of gynecomazia.
Human Odors.--Curious as it may seem, each individual as well as each species is in life enveloped with an odor peculiarly its own, due to its exhaled breath, its excretions, and principally to its insensible perspiration. The faculty of recognizing an odor in different individuals, although more developed in savage tribes, is by no means unknown in civilized society. Fournier quotes the instance of a young man who, like a dog, could smell the enemy by scent, and who by smell alone recognized his own wife from other persons.
Fournier also mentions a French woman, an inhabitant of Naples, who had an extreme supersensitiveness of smell. The slightest odor was to her intolerable; sometimes she could not tolerate the presence of certain individuals. She could tell in a numerous circle which women were menstruating. This woman could not sleep in a bed which any one else had made, and for this reason discharged her maid, preparing her own toilet and her sleeping apartments. Cadet de Gassieourt witnessed this peculiar instance, and in consultation with several of the physicians of Paris attributed this excessive sensitiveness to the climate. There is a tale told of a Hungarian monk who affirmed that he was able to decide the chastity of females by the sense of smell alone. It is well known that some savage tribes with their large, open nostrils not only recognize their enemies but also track game the same as hounds.
Individual Odors.--Many individuals are said to have exhaled particularly strong odors, and history is full of such instances.
We are told by Plutarch that Alexander the Great exhaled an odor similar to that of violet flowers, and his undergarments always smelled of this natural perfume. It is said that Cujas offered a particular analogy to this. On the contrary, there are certain persons spoken of who exhaled a sulphurous odor. Martial said that Thais was an example of the class of people whose odor was insupportable. Schmidt has inserted in the Ephemerides an account of a journeyman saddler, twenty-three years of age, of rather robust constitution, whose hands exhaled a smell of sulphur so powerful and penetrating as to rapidly fill any room in which he happened to be. Rayer was once consulted by a valet-de-chambre who could never keep a place in consequence of the odor he left behind him in the rooms in which he worked.
Hammond is quoted with saying that when the blessed Venturni of Bergamons officiated at the altar people struggled to come near him in order to enjoy the odor he exhaled. It was said that St.
Francis de Paul, after he had subjected himself to frequent disciplinary inflictions, including a fast of thirty-eight to forty days, exhaled a most sensible and delicious odor. Hammond attributes the peculiar odors of the saints of earlier days to neglect of washing and, in a measure, to affections of the nervous system. It may be added that these odors were augmented by aromatics, incense, etc., artificially applied. In more modern times Malherbe and Haller were said to diffuse from their bodies the agreeable odor of musk. These "human flowers," to use Goethe's expression, are more highly perfumed in Southern latitudes.
