Hey Judy, yes I'm sure about sugar killing bacteria.  See if you can find a
copy of anthropologist Sidney Mintz's book Sweetness and Power, all about
sugar and the rise of sugar consumption in England and the West and the rise
of colonialism to provide cheap sugar from the colonies to England, etc.  It
is a fascinating book.

About vaseline, I meant to say the INVENTOR of vaseline advocated eating it.
I wasn't!  And my point was that it probably doesn't hurt the baby to
swallow it, not that it was particularly good for the mother's breasts.  At
one of my son's day cares (not the one he goes to now) they used to put
vaseline on any kind of hurt the kids got -- like insect bites, scrapes,
even bumps that didn't break the surface of the skin.  Of course, they were
a little odd . . .

Cheers :)
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University
co-editor of the new book, Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives