The faulty secretion may be due to the age of the mother, to disease (anæmia), to bad nutrition, or to overwork. It may follow a premature child. Compression of the breasts by corsets or tight dresses may prevent development. The amount of gland tissue is very important. Many women have large, fat breasts, but a small glandular development. Mental conditions, such as fright, worry, and anxiety, will diminish the flow of milk or stop it altogether. _Symptoms._—The child is fretful, goes to sleep after nursing but soon wakes up, or may nurse awhile, and then finding it useless, will cry and refuse the nipple. He loses weight and when weighed before and after feeding, the scales scarcely vary. No secretion or very little can be squeezed from the breasts. The child may be given a bottle after which he goes to sleep. _Treatment._—When the gland tissue is defective, no treatment can succeed. The appetite must be improved by bitter tonics and the mind relieved of its anxieties, if possible. Change of scenery may help. The fluids must be increased, milk, cocoa, chocolate and gruel must be pushed, and such vegetables added as corn and beets. Oyster stews, clams, lobsters, and crabs will help. The diet must be full and nutritious with especial stress on those foods that raise the blood pressure. Malt drinks or champagne may avail in some cases. Exercise in moderation is desirable. Artificial stimulation of the breast sometimes succeeds. Massage will irritate the glands, increase the congestion, and promote functional activity; or a Bier vacuum apparatus may be put over the gland several times a day and the air pumped out. The breast should be kept distended for fifteen to twenty minutes. There is difficulty in this country in getting glass bells of sufficient size. =Galactorrhœa= is the name applied to an abundant secretion of milk poor in quality toward the end of a long lactation or after the child is weaned. The symptoms are an almost constant flow of milk with resultant anæmia. _Treatment._—Elix. of iron, quinine and strychnine with compression of the gland. A dry diet and the avoidance of all irritation of the breasts will aid. To “dry up the milk,” follow the treatment for “caked breast.” [Illustration: Fig. 110.—A standard breast pump. (American Text Book.)] =Quality of the milk= may be such that the child will not take it or, if taken, it fails to nourish. In some cases this is due to overlong, or to irregular, periods between feedings; for when the nursing interval is too short, the milk becomes too rich, when too long, it becomes thinner and less nutritious.