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112
HACKNEY BOROUGH COUNCIL.
PREVENTION OF SCARLET FEVER OR
SCARLATINA.
Scarlet fever or scarlatina is a dangerous infectious disease,
attacking mostly children under ten years of age, but adults are not
exempt from the disease. Males and females are equally liable to be
attacked. Epidemics occur at all seasons of the year. In Hackney
during the year 1903 there were 636 cases of scarlet fever, amongst
which 20 died. This is a little over 3 per cent, of the persons
attacked. The fatality is not very great compared with some other
familiar fevers; but although recovery occurs in the vast majority of
cases, the disease leaves in many of the children who have suffered
from it serious constitutional damage. In some cases chronic kidney
disease is a result of the fever; in others, heart disease; in a third,
disease of the ear, which may end in total deafness; in others, the
glands of the neck are enlarged. This does not complete the list of
the effects of this disease, but the above is sufficient to show that in
scarlet fever or scarlatina we have a most serious disease, and that it
is the duty of the public to prevent as far as possible its spread.
The disease may spread from a person ill with or recovering from
the disease to a healthy person, or even from a person suffering from
what appears to be only a sore throat, but which in reality is a mild
form of scarlet fever. Cows' milk has been in some outbreaks the
medium by which the disease has been conveyed, the milk becoming
infected by persons engaged in milking or in the manipulation
of milk whilst suffering from the disease in a mild form. Infected
articles of bedding, clothes, toys, cups, etc., may spread the disease.
Infection may also be conveyed by persons who have been in contact
.with patients, although they may not be suffering themselves.