Breasts by Florence Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

Bythe late Paleocene, there were a hundred genera of mammals made up of thousands of species, from saber-toothed tigers to hornless rhinos to flying bats to primates. The largest known mammal, a rhino-like Indricotherium transouralicum, walked Eurasia 34 million years ago. It weighed forty thousand pounds. The bumblebee bat, on the other hand, stands one and a half inches tall. As Oftedal put it, “You can have the tremendous diversity of form of things like cheetahs, buffalo, mice, manatees, seals, all made possible because of lactation!”
    The bonuses continue. Because the young must stay with the mother all day, “you have cultural transmission!” The offspring learns from the mother. Because mother and baby must communicate and “love” in some form, the mammalian brain’s six-layer neocortex evolved (together with a new sensitivity to hormones), making possible an acute sense of touch, sound, and smell, and eventually conscious thought, reasoning, and language.
    Lactation, with its tremendous metabolic efficiencies, made possible the huge difference in brain volume—up to ten times— between reptiles and mammals. The need for suckling drove the development of the palate and tongue muscles. These developments in turn prepared the way for the evolution of speech in certain higher-order primates, namely, humans. Lactation enabled complex communication.
    “You have the evolution of highly social behavior!”
    Oftedal spoke with the enthusiasm of a convert, but, surprisingly, there is barely a mention of lactation in many textbooks about the evolution of synapsids and proto-mammals. No one pays adequate attention to lactation, said a wistful Oftedal, even though it’s perhaps the single most earth-shaking event in mammalian ascendance. “It’s because the field is dominated by men who don’t think much of breasts except as sexual objects,” he laughed.
    Not that again.
    But he’s right. The evolutionary biologists have spent so much time on the unusual and mesmerizing appearance of breasts that they’ve forgotten there’s something profound and fundamental inside them. Students of the breast haven’t much noticed that these mysterious interiors evolved to be intricately connected to the rest of the body and to the outer environment. Mammals could not have adapted so well to their changing planet if their glands weren’t constantly checking out the neighborhood. Need some Lysol? Here’s a squirt! Need a head that’s five times bigger than your ancestors? Cheers! To be sure, this adaptation was the result of natural selection, and plenty of mammary glands out there didn’t make it. But thanks to all that hard-won evolution, the gland itself is also capable of making minute adjustments on a day-to-day basis to serve mothers and offspring. Our blind spots to the breast’s amazing evolution may help explain why there have been, and continue to be, big gaps in our knowledge about how these organs work. Fortunately, some scientists are taking a deeper look.
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PLUMBING: A PRIMER
I have heard a good anatomist say, “the breast is so complicated that I can make nothing clear of it.”

    — SIR ASTLEY PASTON COOPER,
On the Anatomy of the Breast

    I N ANTIQUITY, A TEMPLE ON THE ISLAND OF RHODES DISPLAYED a goblet said to be molded from the perfect breasts of Helen of Troy. Her face may have launched a thousand ships, but it was her breasts that really buoyed the army. In the Middle Ages, French King Henry II reportedly had casts made of the “apple-like” breasts of his mistress Diane de Poitiers for his wine cups. Marie-Antoinette’s breasts were believed to inspire the design of shallow French champagne coupes (not the narrow fluted ones, heavens), as well as of some celebrated porcelain milk bowls made by Sèvres. 1
    Some people are just born with the blueprints for a great pair of knockers. It all has to do with a magic ratio of ligaments to fat to glands. Human breast tissue falls into three