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THE HEALTH OF BARKING
SCARLET FEVER.
The incidence of scarlet fever over the last few years in Barking has followed
closely year by year that generally experienced over the whole of the country.
It has now become clear that the disease which we call scarlet fever differs in
no essential from tonsilitis or sore throat caused by the streptococcus germ. In
some cases the germ causes sore throat with a rash, in others sore throat alone.
Thus a child with sore throat and no rash can infect another child who will develop
full scarlet fever. If the one case is notifiable then so should the other from the
point of view of control. The child with the rash is perhaps the luckier of the two
for he is more likely to receive proper attention.
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