View report page

(32)
effectually isolate the body, instructions have been
given to the undertaker in charge to remove the
corpse without delay to the Infectious Disease
Mortuary to await burial.
RETURN CASES OF SCARLET FEVER.
The question of Return Cases presents very
many points of great difficulty in considering it. In
the first place the actual cause of Scarlet Fever is not
yet definitely known, and its means of propagation
arc still the subject of enquiry. "It is impossible to
say, with our present ignorance of the cause of
Scarlet Fever, in what part of the body the infection
lingers; perhaps in the nasal, buccal, or pharyngeal
mucous membrane, perhaps in the skin." (See
Goodall and Washbourne's Manual of Infectious
Diseases, page 90).
From the above quotation it will be seen how
difficult it is to say how the disease spreads; it may be
in several ways, from person to person, by discharges
from a patient, "infected garments that have been
put away for months have been known to originate
an outbreak;" it is absolutely uncertain how long
the breath of a patient may remain in an infected
condition. Infection begins at the earliest period of
an attack, and is greatest when the fever is at the
highest.
The question is one that is engaging attention all
over the Country; it is not only in our own parish that