Report on an outbreak of scarlet fever during the summer of 1888, in a dairy custom / [Henry E. Armstrong].

  • Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England). City and county.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on an outbreak of scarlet fever during the summer of 1888, in a dairy custom / [Henry E. Armstrong]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    The Nature of the Sore Throats.— On considering the foregoing des- criptions by the different observers, it is apparent that there was a con- siderable range in degree of severity of attacks. The accounts of the several cases, including those under my own notice, correspond exactly with the throat appearances of the children of the dairy-helper Rutter, at Gosforth. Every one of the signs and appearances of the throat without skin-rash above mentioned are such as are commonly met with in typical cases of Scarlet Fever. There are numbers of instances of this in the outbreak under report. Different members of a family have also had the same form of Sore Throat—some with rash and some without. From all I have seen and gathered from the medical practitioners concerned, I have no hesitation in stating that the disease from which the children of the dairyman Rutter have been suffering is the same as that from which which the consumers of the milk have suffered. The strictest inquiry has failed to elicit that there was any appearance of eruption on the skin of Eutter's children. If it was possible for these children to undergo, unknown to their parents, the Sore Throats from which they suffered, it might well happen that the additional sign of a faint skin-rash may have passed unobserved. But the absence of the rash in these cases only makes them correspond more closely to a large proportion of the cases in the dairy custom, which are directly allied to others of undoubted Scarlet Fever. There is nothing new in the idea of Scarlet Fever without eruption. It is one of the acknowledged varieties of this disease. It may easily be recognised when occurring in families aloug with ordinary cases. The dithculty is to distinguish it from Sore Throats of entirely different cha- racter, when occurring by itself, and unassociated with the normal form. There can be no doubt of the importance of excluding from every possibility of infection all milk intended for sale. Hence, in relation to dairy management, every case of Sore Throat, no matter how simi)le it may appear, should be reijarded as suspicious and treated as infectious. Extent of the Outbreak in Newcastle. T'ime.—Special attention was first called to the cases of Scarlet Fever notified, as already stated, on Monday, July 2nd. The date of the first a]:)pearauce of ailment in the last of the houses in the milk custom that were invaded is July sth. Fresh cases in households previously all'ected have been notified up to the 14th iust. Altogether the cases that have come under notice to the last-named date (14th) among the consumers of Mr. Dodgsou's milk, are as follows :—