Salt Lake Telegram | 1932-12-29 | Page 6 | Daily Health Service

Daily Health Service Scarlet Fever Usually Spread b by Contact This is the first of a series of four articles by Dr Fishbein on the thena nature na ture and treatment of scarlet fever By DR MORRIS FISHBEIN Scarlet fever no doubt was known to the ancients ancients but it is only within the last ten years that it has actually been thoroughly elucidated It Is an acute infectious disease that comes on suddenly with witha a very red rash which disappears gradually and which is followed by peeling o of the skin For many years it was known that thata a germ called the streptococcus was associated with scarlet fever but Itis it itis itis is only recently that the definite relationship relationship relationship re re- re- re of of- this germ to the cause of the disease has been established The proof is in the fact that the thc germ can be found in the throat the blood and other tissues of people who have the disease that the disease can be produced in human beings by put put- ing the germ into their bodies and that there is a reaction in the skin of a human being who does docs not have havethe havethe havethe the disease when the toxin or or- poison taken from the germs is inoculated into nto the skin Scarlet fever usually comes on in epidemics th that lt are worse in the winter winter win win- winter ter or r fall The chief factor is contact contact con con- contact tact usually of a child with someone who has the disease Most of the cases develop in children between five and twelve years ears of age There is something that the child gets in its blood from the mother which prevents children below below be be- below low one year of ot age from catching the disease in most cases Scarlet fever le does not spread nearly near near- ly Iy so rapidly as measles apparently only about one fn in n ten people who come in contact with cases of the disease later develops it It is of course possible that people people peo peo- pie are infected with mild attacks of scarlet fever fever- which are overlooked and that as a result they are later protected against the disease Scarlet Lever fever ever Is one of those diseases dis dis' diseases eases which happens once in a persons persons persons person's per sons son's lifetime and then is not likely to happen again In other words one attack of the disease protects Occasionally scarlet fever is spread I through milk or through the or secretions of persons who are infected ted but spread through food is far less frequent than the spread directly directly directly di di- from person to person Most people people- are interested to know whether or not the thc scales or the skin that peel of off after scarlet fever will transmit the disease Apparently it will not do so unless it is contaminated con con- with the secretions of the f 4 nose and throat and then it ma may maydo do so NEXT How lIow scarlet fever behaves behaves be haves ves