An 18th century controlled trial prompted by a potential shortage of hospital beds

摘要

At the end of 1760, the political authorities in Geneva were preoccupied by a threatening epidemic of venereal disease. Doctors and surgeons had been alerted to this possibility having seen a few women who had contracted venereal disease after contact with a ‘mother sucker’. Mother suckers were women paid to suck the breasts of women who had recently given birth and who did not want to (or could not) breastfeed their babies. It was believed that emptying the breast was required to stop lactation and that accumulating excess milk could be deleterious for a young mother's health. Medical as well as lay people believed that health resulted from a proper balance of the body's circulating humors, and between what entered and left the body.1