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, are not properly opened, a dose or two of the following mixture should be given: Take of—Simple Syrup, three drachms; Essence of Senna, nine drachms: To make a Mixture. Two teaspoonfuls to be given early in the morning occasionally, and to be repeated in four hours, if the first dose should not operate. 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 seventeen 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 has peeled off has been renewed. Let us now sum up the plan I adopt: 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 roses with syrup is _the_ medicine for scarlet fever. 4. Purgatives to be religiously avoided for the first ten days at least, and even afterward, 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.