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together; the disparity in the ages of the two was too great. If
they came in contact with each other, it could only have been a
casual meeting in the passage somewhere during the afternoon
of April 5th; no evidence of such a meeting could be obtained.
If V. B. was the infecting agent the incubation period could only
be from 12 to 16 hours.
2 other children from the same house had been removed to
the Hospital. A. B. and F. B., brothers of V. B., were removed
to Hospital on March 1st and March 6th respectively. These
two could not have been the source of infection. A sister, F. B.,
had also suffered from a sore throat, but had developed no other
signs of Scarlet Fever. It is possible that this sister had an
abortive attack of Scarlet Fever, and was the infecting agent.
No outside source of infection could be traced. The previous
case notified in the district occurred on March 26th, and P. S.
had not been in contact with that one.
The second "return" case was that of M. D., who was
notified of Scarlet Fever on March 21st, 1913.
R. D., a twin brother, was notified of Scarlet Fever on
December 10th, 1912, and discharged from the Hospital on
January 29th, 1913. R. D. had no complication of any kind whilst
in the Hospital, and was not in contact with any acute cases. He
had Chicken Pox on admission, and was kept in the separation
ward for nearly a month, and was then transferred to a convalescent
ward.
It will be seen that the period which elapsed between the
discharge of one case and the occurrence of another exceeds the
one month which is sometimes arbitrarily taken, but there are
other reasons for believing that R. D. did not infect M. D., and
it will be convenient to consider the question in conjunction with
the third so-called " return " case.
W. W. was notified of Scarlet Fever on September 16th.
A. W., his brother, was admitted to the. Hospital on June 18th,
and discharged on September 4th. If we trace the Scarlet Fever
history of this family we shall find the probable infecting agent
of both " return " cases.