>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)