On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the sixth, seventh, and eighth days, there was much swelling of the face, arms and legs, where it had taken on the confluent form. The little patient was quite feverish and restless. On the seventh, eighth, and ninth days was quite hoarse, and had some difficulty in swallowing.
All the symptoms gradually diminished after the ninth day, and many of the scabs were rubbed off. On the seventeenth day very few adherent scabs remained. Aconite and Tart. emetic were the remedies used.
At the present time May 14th the child shows pits, not deep however. The parts where the eruption was confluent are still quite red. The eczema, however, seems to have left for good, and I am in hopes of seeing a good clear skin before many weeks. Although the diagnosis the first few days was obscure, all doubt was removed, and it was pronounced a case of vaccinia communicated from the mother. You will note that on the fifth day after the re-vaccination of the mother the paroxysm of fever occurred, and ten days after the baby was feverish and the eruptions made its appearance one day later. We can therefore call it fourteen days from the time the babe first took the milk impregnated with vaccinia from its mother. If the system can thus be so thoroughly impregnated with vaccinia, may we not also far fear various and worse evils from the milk of unhealthy and unclean nurses?
My remark to this instructive experience of Dr. Harris is, that Thuja Occidentalis was more Homoeopathic to the case than Aconite and Ant. tart. It shows that vaccinia may most probably be sucked by the babe in the milk, though this is not conclusively shown, inasmuch as it may have been a case of small-pox in the suckling.
The same transmissibility of disease through the milk has been observed more than once. For instance-On Christmas-day last, 1883, M. Layet and a number of medical men, veterinary surgeons, and others, examined and reported on an alleged case of spontaneous cow-pox occurring in a milch cow at Cerons near Bordeaux. The animal presented on the four teats and the neighbouring parts of the udder a considerable number of small pustules, most of them already dried and covered with black crusts, but some containing a more or less milky fluid. The eruption was confluent, and there were no umbilicated pimples. It had made its first appearance on December 22nd. On December 26th, six or seven tubes were filled with the fluid from such pustules as had not already burst. The reporters state that an infant fed with the milk from this cow has at the same time presented very similar symptoms. I now revert to my narrative.
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.