Just a couple of thoughts on these issues:

My mother got the mumps when I was three weeks old, and was told she *had*
to continue nursing me.  She describes sitting on the edge of the bed
gritting her teeth from the pain while I nursed.  I have never had the mumps
myself.  I'm wondering if the breast milk contained both virus and
anti-bodies so that I got a sub-clinical case of the mumps myself (mom says
I "wasn't sick at all") and got some anti-bodies from her to fight the
disease, but also made enough myself to produce active immunity, without any
symptoms.

I suspect the poster who says she's never had chicken pox might have had a
sub-clinical case that was enough to produce antibodies.  Generally, the
more severe the infection the greater the symptoms and the greater the
antibody response (so that you can get two mild cases of chicken pox, for
example), but I'll bet sometimes the symptoms are mild but the antibody
response is sufficient, while other times the symptoms are severe but the
antibody response is poor.

Any thoughts?

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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352