On the other hand we learn from
Juvenal and Martial that, like ourselves, the Greeks detested
pendant and bulky breasts, the signs of beauty being elevation,
smallness, and regularity of contour. In the Grecian images of
Venus the breasts are never pictured as engorged or enlarged. The
celebrated traveler Chardin says that the Circassian and Georgian
women have the most beautiful breasts in the world; in fact the
Georgians are so jealous of the regular contour and wide interval
of separation of their breasts that they refuse to nourish their
children in the natural manner.
The amount of hypertrophy which is sometimes seen in the mammae
is extraordinary. Borellus remarks that he knew of a woman of
ordinary size, each of whose mammae weighed about 30 pounds, and
she supported them in bags hung about her neck. Durston reports a
case of sudden onset of hypertrophy of the breast causing death.
At the postmortem it was found that the left breast weighed 64
pounds and the right 40 pounds. Boyer successfully removed two
breasts at an interval of twenty-six days between the two
operations. The mass excised was one-third of the total
body-weight.
Schaeffer speaks of hypertrophied mammae in a girl of fourteen,
the right breast weighing 3900 grams (136 1/2 oz.
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