From a strictly biological perspective human beings are not unique when it comes to how Mother Nature has arranged for us to feed our young.
A great diversity of mammals have milk glands surrounded by fatty tissue. What is different is how even when they're not being used for feeding purposes, the female breast is almost impossible to ignore.
In the first of a new series on the historical ideas about different parts of the female body, Anna McNamee looks at breasts.
Further reading:' Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Body'
by Michael Sims,
published by Allen Lane;
iIBN: 0 713 99568 8
'Common Bodies ? Women, Touch and Power in 17th Century England'
by Laura Gowing,
published by Yale University Press;
ISBN: 0 300 10096 5
'Hippocrates Woman: Reading the female body in ancient Greece'
by Helen King,
published by Routledge;
ISBN: 0415138957
'Different for Girls' by Joan Smith,
published by Chatto Windus;
ISBN: 070116512X
