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Scarlatina Simplex Or Simple Scarlet-fever

Categories: DESCRIPTION OF SCARLET-FEVER.
Sources: Hydriatic Treatment Of Scarlet Fever In Its Different Forms

In the _mildest form_ of the disease, called _scarlatina simplex_, or

_simple scarlet-fever_, there is no inflammation of the throat, the

fever is moderate, and the patient suffers very little. Unfortunately

this form is so rare, that many experienced physicians never saw a case.

Probably, it was a case belonging to this class, which was mentioned a

number of years ago by one of the writers on Priessnitz's practice, when

> a lady with scarlet-fever joined a dancing party at Graefenberg, a case

for reporting which the author has been ridiculed by the opponents of

the Water-Cure, but which by no means belongs to impossibilities; for

scarlatina simplex having been declared by eminent physicians (not of

Priessnitz's school) to be "scarcely a disease," becoming fatal only

through the officiousness of the doctor, and other physicians of note

recommending cold rooms and open air through the whole course of the

disease, or at least towards the latter part of it; I do not see

why a patient under water-treatment should not be safer in producing

perspiration by dancing than in sitting in a cold room or in walking in

the open street. The fact, of course, is unusual, and I do not exactly

recommend its practice, but it is not at all impossible, and ridiculing

the reporter of it shows either ignorance of the disease or a bad will

towards the new curative system, to which those are most opposed who

know the least of it.



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