Sir William Henry Power

“ Some months later the mother being out of violet powder, again used the particular powder to the infant, and at once the sores reappeared. The powder was then burned. A. D., aged three years, was attacked about Christmas 1877 by varicella. During recovery and while the pocks were dying away, she herself purchased a packet of the particular powder, which was then used for dusting the eruption about the pudenda. Almost at once the dying vesicles became sores which turned black and discharged matter; on healing they left scars. ”

“ This appears to have been specially notable as regards those slighter cases not medically treated; in such the vesication and subsequent abrasion and induration of the skin was observed only in the folds of the neck, armpits, and genital organs. Nevertheless, before discarding the hypothesis of erysipelas, I thought it well to inquire whether there had been any typical erysipelas among infants or others in the parish; and whether the facts of the distribution of the malady in question could be explained on the supposition that those attacked had had conveyed to them erysipelatous infection. ”

“ Of the remaining two, the mother of one had the particular powder in the house at the time the infant was attacked, but did not, so far as she can remember, use it; the other mother (whose infant suffered very slightly) had no powder at all, and is of opinion that the soreness of her infant’s neck was the result of pressure from the instruments used in delivery.
p. 42. The sufferers with few exceptions (all of whom however had the powder) were grouped near to one or other of the two shops which alone in this extensive parish sold the particular powder in question. ”