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This persistence throughout the year is more
or less common everywhere, and it is in evidence
in the official returns that the majority of the
districts in our own county week by week report
cases of scarlet fever, they are very few, perhaps
only two or three per district, but there they are,
serving as evidence of infection or of some source
of origin beyond our immediate cognizance, and
practically incapable of detection. There may
everywhere be "carriers" of this disease, as is now
recognised to be the case in typhoid and diphtheria,
but the exact nature of the infecting
organism is not properly known, and as long as
we are to that extent still in the dark, we must
be content to continue to exercise the most rigid
precautions that sanitary science, pathology,
bacteriology and experience teach us.
All cases of scarlet fever that are considered
cured should be kept under observation for many
weeks afterwards, and in the event of their
"catching cold" and developing nasal discharges
it would be prudent and considerate to others to
keep them at home and away from school until
the catarrh is ended, or at least to seek medical
advice. There was but one death, and that was
registered as being due to "scarlet fever and concurrent
specific parotitis," or, in other words, the
child had both scarlet fever and mumps. Two of
the 29 cases were those of nurses at the hospital,
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