OF THE SCARLET FEVElv,

163

When this disease is mistaken for a simple inflammation, andtreated with repeated bleedings and strong cathartics, or loo cool-ing medicines, it generally proves fatal. The medicines vo be de-pended on in this case are cordials and antiseptics, as cinchona,wine, snake-root, and the like. The treatment must be in generalsimilar to that of putrid fever, or of the malignant ulcerous sorethroat.

In the year 1774 a very bad species of this fever prevailed dur-ing winter in Edinburgh. It r.aged chiefly among young people.The eruption was generally attended w ith a quinsey; and theinflammatory symptoms were so blended with others of a putridnature, as to render the treatment of the disease very difficult.Many of the patients, towards the decline of the fever, were afflictedwith large swellings of the submaxillary glands, and not a few hada suppuration in one or both ears.

If soreness cf the throat accompanies this fever, it may per-haps be the putrid or malignant sore throat, which will probablyrequire the utmost exertions of the most able physician. Wine,cordials, and food which are pernicious in measles and the scarletfever, are absolutely necessary, and to be exhibited with perseve-rance.

When the scarlet fever is succeeded by anasarcous swelling, the.greatest care is required, since should it be neglected, an incurabledropsy may be the consequence.

Washing the hands and feet with tepid water, or vinegar, naysometimes washing the whole body daily with equal parts of vinegar and water, has been practised with success, particularly inthe treatment of typhus fever; nevertheless, bathing in fevers hasnot been reckoned among the regular means of regular physi-cians, till it was lately brought into notice by Dr. Jackson andthe late Dr. Currie of Liverpool. To their useful writings weowe the revival of a practice of great antiquity ; for this remedywas not unknown in the time of the Emperor Augustus, and itsuse and management were well known to Galen, and accuratelydefined by him.

The cold and tepid affusion is now employed as a remedy in'ever, confluent small-pox, measles, and influenza. Of its usein scariect fever, Dr. Gregory, Professor of Medicine at the Uni-versity of Edinburgh, gives the following striking instance, in afetter to the late Dr. Currie.

" This day sennight (1st November) my eldest son, a boyof six years of age, of a sanguine temperament and very irritableconstitution, was taken ill about noon, when out at his walk.Your friend Benjamin Bell saw him before I did ; lor having calledon me to speak about a patient, he enquired for my wife, andfound the child with her 1\ ing on a settee. She anxiously beggedot him to examine the child, and see whether he had got thescarlet fever, which she suspected to be the case. Mr. Bell hadno difficulty in pronouncing the disease was the scarlet fever; *or«ven by that time (within two hours from the invasion) the ciup-

<: