BLACKBURNE’S CURE OF SCARLET FEVER, 
gneasures, the author has clearly proved 
to be extremely injurious. When a 
school is broken up, the individuals com- 
posing it have a chance of carrying the 
infection to their respective homes, and 
hd thus widely disseminating a subtile 
and insidious poison. When a family 
4s separated, an equal risk occurs of its 
being transported far beyond its first. 
limits, and of its thus extending the 
scene of its ravages. ‘To prevent those 
direful effects, the authorstrongly recom- 
mends, that whenever the disease shews 
itself in a school, those affected with it 
should be kept perfectly separated from 
the others, in apartments appropriated 
to their reception, and not allowed to 
mix with their companions till a consi- 
derable period after their convalescence. 
Ina private family the same plan should 
be adopted. intercourse, with the other 
branches of it should be strictly prohibit- 
ed, until the disease lias not only gone 
off, but till the danger of its being pro- 
pagated from the convalescent subject 
bas ceased. How soon there is no risk 
‘of such propagation has not yet been 
_ accurately determined ; but the author 
is convinced that the danger exists long 
after it has been supposed to cease, and 
has known instances of infection taking 
place after the 10th day. The disper- 
sion of individuals, who are not appa- 
rently affected with the disease, is always 
done at some risk to those with whom 
they may afterwards associate, if suffi- 
cient time does not intervene between 
their exposure to the contagion and the 
_period of their mixing with healthy sub- 
_ jects, to determine whether there may 
not be some latent seeds’of it existing in 
them. The author, therefore, conceives 
gt a duty which parents and the heads of 
$emiunaries owe to the public, to do their 
' utmost to prevent the propagation of 
this ‘serious complaint, which can only 
be effectually done by s ¢liding the in- 
fected till they cease to be cipable of dis. 
seminating contagion, and by taking care 
not to send out children who may have 
been expose.l to its iffuence till there is 
‘a perfect assurance that they have been 
able to resist it. 
‘The occurrence of scarlatina ina large 
family, and in a numerous school, afford-- 
ed the author very favourable opportu- 
nities of ascertaining several important 
circumstances relating to this disease.— 
In the tormer case, he ascertained, that 
convalescents from scarlet fever are capa 
ble of communicating it for ten days, ora 
769° 
further period, not yet precisely defined, 
after their perfect recovery ; and that it 
may be suppressed in its commencement 
by an emetic, or the affusion of cold wa- 
ter, but that the person who thus escapes 
its full formation is liable to be reinfect- 
ed. The success which attended the 
complete separation of the affected or 
suspected cases, in the public school) 
convinces the author that measures of 
prevention are always practicable, and 
should at all times be carried into effect. 
At this school there were sixty-four scho- 
lars, of whom only twenty took the com. 
plaint, and none of the family, the as- 
sistants, or servants. Ontheother hand, 
out of forty ladies at a boarding-school 
at Chester, as mentioned by Dr. Hay- 
garth, where similar, precautions were 
not taken, only four escaped the com- 
plaint, twelve had it very severely, and 
two most dangerously. 
With regard to the identity of the 
origin of scarlatina and malignant sore 
throat, a point which has been very much 
the subject of discussion, the author as- 
certained satisfactorily, from the histories 
of both the sets of cases above-mention- 
ed, that the primary sources of conta- 
gion were the same in each, and that 
‘“« Every form of angina contagiosa, or 
scarlatina, was exhibited in them, some with 
angina alone, others with angina and erup- 
tion combined, others with eruption only.” 
The contrary doctrine has, -in the au- 
thor’s opinion, produced disadvantages 
in two ways. 
** Ist. Common cases of scarlatina, hav- 
ing been supposed to belong to a mild and 
safe class of diseases, have been treated with 
too little attention in ordinary practice. It 
is true, that a very great majority of patients 
recover from scarlet fever, yet it must be al- 
lowed, on the other hand, ‘that general ana- 
sarca, tumid glands, hectic fever, cough, 
and sometimes dysenteric symptoms, are the 
too frequent consequences of the imperfect 
‘eure of scarlatina. @dly. It being generally 
presnined, that the same contagion does not 
in one instance produce eruption, and in 
another ulcerated throat only, among the 
members of the same family where scarlet 
fever is present, the state of the throat is too 
often not adverted to in proper time.” 
The general treatment ef scarlatina, 
Dr. Blackburne conceives, should 
<* — be grounded upon the knowledge ot 
its source, and igs debilitating propensity.— 
But at the same time that this is acknowledg- 
ed to bt the true complexion of it in an en- 
Jarged and general sense, yet where such 
S5ns 1S 
