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91
COMPLICATIONS.
The following complications were encountered among the
completed cases of scarlet fever:—
Albuminuria 3
Nephritis 1
Adenitis 33
Otitis 18
Mastoiditis 10
Rhinitis 37
Rheumatism 1
Rheumatic endocarditis 1
Cellulitis 1
Facial Impetigo 1
Retro-pharyngeal abscess 1
Septic tonsils, necessitating tonsillectomy 3
Vaginal discharge 6
Various septic conditions 8
Scarlatinal relapse 4
RETURN CASES.
(Cases occurring in the household of a discharged
patient within twenty-eight days of discharge.)
There were six return cases of scarlet fever during the
year.
The stigma which was formerly attached to return cases,
is, in the light of research, scarcely a reproach. The knowledge
that scarlet fever patients returning from hospital to
domestic life, in a large proportion of cases harbour not only
the type of organism which occasioned their admission to
hospital, but other types acquired during their isolation,
renders the fact not a little surprising that the so-called
return cases are so few in number.
That they do arise is admitted and the following example
of their occurrence instances the subtlety of the behaviour of
the streptococcus hæmolyticus.