=Remember.= 1. Typhoid fever, hookworm disease, and amoebic dysentery are all caused by the improper disposal of human excreta. 2. Most of the sickness that can be prevented is the result of dirty habits; if all people would keep clean and see that everything about them was kept clean, a great deal of sickness would be prevented and a great many lives would be saved. CHAPTER XXVII HOW SCARLET FEVER IS CARRIED There are certain diseases that we know to be communicable (that is, "catching"), but as yet we do not know the germ that causes them, and therefore we cannot tell just how they are carried about. We do know that they are transferred from one person to another; but not being able to locate the cause, as we can in the diseases of which we do know the germ, we cannot explain how it is done. [Sidenote: How scarlet fever is like diphtheria] Among the diseases of this class we find scarlet fever. In one respect scarlet fever acts much the same as diphtheria. A person may have it and not be very sick, sometimes hardly sick at all. At night a child may have a high fever, with a slightly sore throat, and the next morning he may feel perfectly well. The mother supposes that the fever was due to an "upset stomach," thinks no more about it, and sends the child to school. The next time the child takes a bath, he perhaps notices that the skin peels off over some parts of the body. This means that the high fever was due to scarlet fever, but the breaking-out (rash) was so fine that it was not noticed. It also means that all the children in the school have been exposed to the disease. These very mild cases are the most dangerous because so often they are not recognized. [Sidenote: Why mild cases are dangerous:] [Sidenote: (_1_) For the severe cases they cause] There are two things to be remembered in connection with these mild forms of scarlet fever, as well as of every other communicable disease. The first is that the same cause which produces a mild form of the disease in one child may produce its most severe form in another child. You can contract a mild form of the disease from exposure to a severe case; and you can contract a severe form from exposure to a mild case. The character of the case to which you are exposed will give no indication of the form the disease will assume in your body. [Sidenote: (_2_) For the bad after effects] The next thing to be remembered about the mild form of scarlet fever is that, though the child may not be made very sick at the time, there may later be very bad results. A child who has had scarlet fever in such a mild form that he hardly knew he was sick, may, for a while, appear to be quite well; then suddenly he has an earache, and an abscess forms. This abscess is due to the scarlet fever germs which have gone from the throat to the ear, and as a result the child may lose his hearing entirely.