Xref: utzoo sci.bio:919 sci.med:4181
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From: jack@cs.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med
Subject: male breastfeeding
Message-ID: <1686@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Feb 88 18:14:38 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 24


[Craig Werner claimed that male breastfeeding was impossible because men
don't have ductal tissue].

When Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland were in Venezuela in 1799 they 
heard of a man who at the age of 32, while his wife was sick, had tried to 
pacify his child by getting it to suck on his own nipple. This caused his
breast to swell considerably and eventually discharge very thick, sweet milk.
The man (Francisco Lozano from the village of Arenas in the Araya peninsula)
breastfed his child two or three times a day for five months; the child had
no other food during this period. Humboldt and Bonpland saw Lozano and his son
about 14 years later; Lozano's breasts were enlarged and wrinkled, especially
the left one, which had been the more productive. They checked out a number
of eyewitnesses.

I got this from an anonymous abridgment of Humboldt's diaries published by
Blackwood's towards the end of last century. I haven't checked with the
original source, but the abridgment makes no other claims of extraordinary
occurrences. I doubt whether Humboldt was any more gullible than Craig Werner.
-- 
ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
JANET:jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs       USENET: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Department, University of Glasgow,
      17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland (041 339 8855 x 6045)