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(43)
definitely and unmistakably sickened with Scarlet
fever two days prior to the return home of the patient
discharged from Hospital.
In the other, an equally definite history of the
existence of unmistakable Scarlet Fever symptoms, a
few hours prior to the return of the case discharged
from Hospital was equally definitely established.
These coincidences servo to show how careful it is
necessary to be before concluding that the relationsbip
between the return home from Hospital of a discharged
case and the occurrence of a fresh one of the same
disease, is in that of cause and effect. But if it be
granted that the seven cases above referred to did
actually derive their infection from the six supposed
infecting cases discharged from Hospital, it must be
confessed the evil is very small compared with what
would result had the 277 cases been nursed at home
under conditions in which any kind of isolation, during
at least six weeks of infectiousness, would have been
virtually impossible, for when we turn to the evidence
to be derived from a review of the cases isolated at
home under unmistakably better conditions than would
have been possible for the 277 cases aggregated in and