<Yes, the illustrators have often been much too 'generous' in their 
interpretation of Sir Astley Cooper's original diagram, and each new 
illustrator relies on the previous 'generation' of diagrams, or even just 
the general memory of them (hasn't each of us done this in drawing a hasty 
illustration??) in order to draw his newer illustration, and pretty soon, we 
end up with a pictorial version of the old 'telephone game'! >

I have heard Donna Ramsay, the ultrasonographer in Peter Hartmann's team, 
talk several times and on one occasion she spoke about visiting the place 
where Sir Astley Cooper's actual illustrations are (sorry, can't remember 
details). Anyway, she worked out that the way he was able to "see" the ducts 
was to inject coloured fluid/wax/ something into the ducts and the way he 
kept the fluid in the ducts was by TYING the ends. She concluded that the 
"lactiferous sinuses" were actually artefacts caused by this technique. And 
then, as Jean says, others have just copied his diagrams without questioning 
their accuracy.

At the recent New Zealand lactation consultants conference, the Hartmann 
team demonstrated their techniques on stage. Two local women (one at a 
time), sat on stage and used the pump. Donna showed the ultrasound of their 
breast - including visualising the let-down (huge widening of the ducts) and 
the absence of lactiferous sinuses. Jackie Kent collected the milk, Ching 
measured fat content of the milk as the expressing progressed. The results 
and ultrasound were projected onto the screens. I can't really do justice to 
the demonstration, but it was certainly impressive. They were using the pump 
as a tool to learn about breast function, and there was no promotion of the 
pump itself.

In Australia (and New Zealand) the "missing" lactiferous sinuses are old 
news.

Lisa Amir
MBBS, MMed, IBCLC in Melbourne, Australia

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html