other eruptive fevers, except perhaps small-pox.

It is an object of special dread also for two other reasons. One of
these reasons is the extreme and causeless variations in its severity;
so that I have known more than one or two children in the same family to
have it so slightly as scarcely to be ill, two to have their lives
placed in jeopardy, and two to die. The other reason for special dread
is that the mildness of the disease at its outset affords but a slight
guarantee against the occurrence of serious complications in its course,
and still slighter against secondary diseases which may follow in its
train, and either destroy life directly, or leave behind some
irremediable mischief.

Scarlatina has been divided by medical men into three classes, according
to its different degrees of severity; the mild--that accompanied with
bad sore-throat--and the malignant variety.

We have specially to do with the first of the three; for it is in it
only that there is danger of the disease being overlooked, or mistaken.

The symptoms of scarlatina usually appear within three days after
exposure to its contagion, and there is very good authority for
believing that the interval never exceeds six days. I should not,
however, feel quite secure until after the lapse of ten days, and during
this time the child ought to be isolated from his brothers and sisters.
In the mildest form of the disease the appearance of the rash upon the
surface, usually with, but sometimes even without slight sore-throat and
feverishness, may be the first indication of an affection which is
sometimes so deadly. In the majority of cases, however, it is ushered
in by vomiting once or oftener, accompanied by headache, heaviness, of
head, great heat of skin, and some measure of sore-throat. The brain is
easily disturbed in children, as has already been said, and delirium at
night during the first twenty-four hours of an attack of scarlet fever
need not excite anxiety, for it then often passes away, and the disease
runs a perfectly favourable course. The continuance of delirium later is
an attendant only on the graver forms of scarlet fever.

The rash often makes its appearance within twenty-four hours after the
commencement of the illness, at latest in the course of the second day.
It usually shows itself first on the neck, breast, and face, whence it
extends in twenty-four hours to the body and limbs, and is then not
seldom specially vivid on the inside