When the girl's general health improved and menstruation became more natural, the vicarious discharge diminished in proportion, and the ulcer healed shortly afterward.

Every month this breast had enlarged, the ulcer became inflamed and discharged vicariously, continuing in this manner for a few days, with all the accompanying menstrual symptoms, and then dried up gradually.

It was stated that the ulcer was the result of the girl's stooping over some bushes to take an egg from a hen's nest, when the point of a palmetto stuck in her breast and broke off.

The ulcer subsequently formed, and ultimately discharged a piece of palmetto.
This happened just at the time of the beginning of the menstrual epoch.
The accompanying figures, Plate 1, show the breast in the ordinary state and at the time of the anomalous discharge.
Hancock relates an instance of menstruation from the left breast in a large, otherwise healthy, Englishwoman of thirty-one, who one and a half years after the birth of the youngest child (now ten years old) commenced to have a discharge of fluid from the left breast three days before the time of the regular period.

As the fluid escaped from the nipple it became changed in character, passing from a whitish to a bloody and to a yellowish color respectively, and suddenly terminating at the beginning of the real flow from the uterus, to reappear again at the breast at the close of the flow, and then lasting two or three days longer.