>All the messages about cabbage made me think about food microbiology. All
>agricultural crops have soil microorganisms.
>We have made sourkraut at home. The cabbage is shredded and salt is added.
>The high salt concentration creates an environment favoring certain bacteria.
>These ferment the cabbage, creating acid, which helps to preserve the
>sourkraut.
>
>If you find a recipe for making sourkraut, you will notice that it talks
>about weighting the mixture down with a cover. It is a bubbling, odiferous
>creation. Cabbage bacteria on open wounds would NOT be good.
>
>Becky

I feel that we ought to be cautious in making a deductive leap from one
situation to a very different one.  My guess is that the fermentative
bacteria that turn cabbage into sauerkraut under these culinary conditions
are not the ones to worry about on the nipple.

Then again, Tom Hale writes:

>I've noted,  with some distress,   the use of cabbage for everything from
>salads to warts to senility to breast engorgement to who-knows-what
>tomorrow.   If memory serves me,  I remember a paper illustrating
>transmission of botulinism(or tetanus)  via cabbage,  suggesting that
>whatever was used to "fertilize" the cabbage patch,  could easily be
>transmitted with said leaves.  In this case,  it was sheep manure.

True enough...and then there's those abused, often-ill field workers, with
no bathrooms or medical care out picking our crops, and what happens when
they have diarrhea?  But that is true about all our fresh produce, which we
eat apparently without epidemic harm (one hopes, everyone rinses it first).

In the case of botulinum spores, we eat quite a bit of them in our
lifetimes.  The amount we are exposed to varies in different parts of the
country.  It doesn't appear to do any harm to adults to consume them, since
they need an anaerobic environment in which to produce the botulinum toxin.
Obviously, putting cabbage leaves on one's knee would not be a risk in
terms of botulism, unless one tightly bound the knee and stewed it in its
own juices for quite a long time (days?  weeks?) without changing the
dressing.  One has to consider the environment of the breast and the level
of exposure to determine risk.  Now, we do try to avoid feeding infants the
spores VIA HONEY & CORN SYRUP, but the spores they get through other venues
don't seem to be a particular risk.  Why is that?  We need to know that
before we can assess the risk to the infant of botulism as a result of
cabbage leaves on the breast.

There are many bacteria to which we expose ourselves in eating fresh
produce, or applying it to our skin.  Which pose a real and significant
danger?  Under what conditions?  Who will evaluate this risk?  What is the
risk in NOT consuming or using fresh vegetables?  Can we weigh the opposing
risks?

>Using cabbage extract on open wounds,  particularly nipple ulcerations...is
>absolutely ridiculous...

Wouldn't cabbage extract likely be processed in such a way as to eliminate
bacteria?  Of course, IF it contained alcohol, it ought to be fairly
painful on a wound, and depending on the amount of alcohol (if any), it
might inhibit proper healing...but what makes it more ridiculous than any
other substance to be applied?  Just because it started in the garden?  How
much of our US Pharmacopeia also has these humble roots?  Has cabbage
extract been analyzed and found to be harmful?  If so, THAT would make it
ridiculous.  We have an older physician who still prescribes tincture of
benzoin for damaged nipples  AFTER EVERY FEEDING, to be removed WITH
RUBBING ALCOHOL at the next feeding.  Now, we all know that is ridiculous,
but apparently it once was thought reasonable.

>After many years in medicine,  it is absolutely
>amazing to me the power of mere rumor.

Humans are always searching for answers.  What rumors need, is the
application of scientific method...

Arly


[log in to unmask] (Arly Helm, MS, CLE, IBCLC)