The maternal management of children, in health and diseaseBull, Thomas
Science
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Bull, Thomas
Child care
There are several varieties of this disease; it will be more
perspicuous, however, for our purpose to speak of it under the two
following forms:--
Mild scarlet fever;
Scarlet fever, with sore throat.
MILD SCARLET FEVER.--In this form of the disease there is only the rash
with fever.
SYMPTOMS.--The anticipating symptoms are those of fever: they precede
the eruption. The degree of fever, however, is variable; for the
symptoms are sometimes so moderate as scarcely to attract attention,
slight and irregular shivering, nausea, perhaps vomiting, thirst, and
heat of skin; whilst, at others, there is considerable constitutional
disturbance, indicated by pungent heat of skin, flushing of the face,
suffusion of the eyes, pain in the head, great anxiety and
restlessness, and occasionally slight delirium.
These symptoms are followed on the second day (in the majority of
instances) by the rash. This first appears in numerous specks or minute
patches of a vivid red colour on the face, neck, and chest. In about
four-and-twenty hours it becomes gradually diffused over the whole
trunk. On the following day (the third) it extends to the upper and
lower extremities, so that at this period the whole surface of the body
is of a bright red colour, hot and dry. The efflorescence, too, is not
always confined to the skin, but occasionally tinges the inside of the
lips, cheeks, palate, throat, nostrils, and even the internal surface
of the eyelids. Sometimes the efflorescence is continuous and
universal; but more generally on the trunk of the body there are
intervals of a natural hue between the patches, with papulous dots
scattered over them, the colour being most deep on the loins and
neighbouring parts, at the flexure of the joints, and upon those parts
of the body which are subjected to pressure. It is also generally most
vivid in the evening, gradually becoming paler towards morning.
The eruption is at its height on the fourth day;--it begins to decline
on the fifth, when the interstices widen, and the florid hue fades;--on
the sixth, the rash is very indistinct; and on the eighth day it is
wholly gone.
The various symptoms with which the eruption is accompanied, gradually
disappear with the efflorescence; but the tongue still remains morbidly
red and clean. The peeling off of the cuticle (the outer layer of the
skin), which begins about the end of the fifth day on the parts on
which the eruption first appeared, proceeds; so that about the eighth
or ninth, portions of the cuticle are thrown off, the thickest and
largest being those detached from the skin of the hands and feet.
SCARLET FEVER, WITH SORE THROAT.--In this form of the disease, the
fever and rash are accompanied with inflammation of the throat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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