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Scarlet Fever is a variable disease, some cases being of a most
malignant form, whilst others are of a mild form. Even in the latter
type complications may arise. Some attacks are so mild as to escape
recognition altogether, thereby acting as "carriers," and being the means
whereby this complaint is spread, which partly accounts for the difficulty
and often impossibility of tracing the source of infection. Contaminated
milk, food and water supply, overcrowding and insanitary conditions play
an important part in the spread of scarlet fever and zymotic disease
generally. It is by these mild missed cases or "carriers" that infection is
spread, especially in schools, although the work done by medical
inspection of school children has done much to reduce one great source
of infection. Complications or sequelae may follow even in the mildest
of cases: such as otorrhœa, mastoiditis, nephritis, or albuminuria,
rheumatism, rhinitis, and secondary glandular affections forming
abscesses. As any one or more of these complications may occur in
the same patient, prolonging his recovery, the uncertainty, variability,
and treacherousness of this complaint can be understood. Bacteriology
has not as yet been of any help in defining when a patient
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