There is one important caution I wish to impress upon you,--_do not give opening medicine during the time the eruption is out_. In all probability the bowels will be opened: if so, all well and good; but do not, on any account, for the first ten days, use artificial means to open them. It is my firm conviction that the administration of purgatives in scarlet fever is a fruitful source of dropsy, of disease, and death. When we take into consideration the sympathy there is between the skin and the mucous membrane, I think that we should pause before giving irritating medicines, such as purgatives. The irritation of aperients on the mucous membrane may cause the poison of the skin disease (for scarlet fever is a blood-poison) to be driven internally to the kidneys, to the throat, to the pericardium (bag of the heart), or to the brain. You may say, Do you not purge if the bowels be not open for a week? I say emphatically, No! I consider my great success in the treatment of scarlet fever to be partly owing to my avoidance of aperients during the first ten days of the child's illness. If the bowels, after the ten days, be not properly opened, a dose or two of syrup of senna should be given: that is to say, one or two tea-spoonfuls should be administered early in the morning, and should, if the first dose does not operate, be repeated in four hours. In a subsequent Conversation, I shall strongly urge you not to allow your child, when convalescent, to leave the house under at least a month from the commencement of the illness; I, therefore, beg to refer you to that Conversation, and hope that you will give it your best and earnest consideration! During the last twenty years I have never had dropsy from scarlet fever, and I attribute it entirely to the plan I have just recommended, and in not allowing my patients to leave the house under the month--until, in fact, the skin that had peeled off has been renewed. Let me now sum up the plan I adopt, and which I beg leave to designate as--Pye Chavasse's Fresh Air Treatment of Scarlet Fever:-- 1. Thorough ventilation, a cool room, and scant clothes on the bed, for the first five or six days. 2. A change of temperature of the skin to be carefully regarded. As soon as the skin is cool, closing the windows, and putting additional clothing on the bed. 3. The Acidulated Infusion of Hoses with Syrup is _the_ medicine for scarlet fever. 4. Purgatives to be religiously avoided for the first ten days at least, and even afterwards, unless there be absolute necessity. 5. Leeches, blisters, emetics, cold and tepid spongings, and painting the tonsils with caustic, inadmissible in scarlet fever. 6. A strict antiphlogistic (low) diet for the first few days, during which time cold water to be given _ad libitum_. 7. The patient not to leave the house in the summer under the month; in the winter, under six weeks.