SCARLET FEVER. Synonyms.—Scarlatina; Scarlet Rash. Definition ...

Treatment.—The treatment heretofore has been very unsatisfactory,
and serum therapy at present is occupying the mind of those who have
to deal with the disease. If any remedy would influence the disease, we
are inclined to think that it would be phytolacca and echinacea in large
doses. This, however, is speculation, for we know personally nothing
about it. Means to hasten the suppurative process should always be
used.
Prophylaxis.—Since it is a filth disease, the attention in the future will
be turned to its prevention. Vigorous action on the part of Sanitary
Boards will so overcome the conditions which favor the development of
the disease, that, in time, plague will become a disease of history.
LEPROSY.
Synonyms.—Lepra; Elephantiasis Græcorum; Leontiasis.
Definition.—A chronic infectious disease, caused by the bacillus lepræ,
and characterized by cutaneous pigment alterations, tuberculous
growths in the skin and mucous membranes, and by degenerative
changes in the nerves, with implication of the lymphatic ganglia and
internal viscera, and the ultimate production of a cachexia, which
usually terminates fatally.
History.—Leprosy existed in Egypt 3500 B. C., and the clear-cut and
well-defined description of the disease and the methods of dealing with
it, as found in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Leviticus, show
that the writer was as familiar with it as the authors of modern times.
Lucretius says, “Leprosy is a disease born in Egypt along the waters of
the Nile, and nowhere else.” The Hebrews brought it with them from the
land of bondage, and to be a leper was worse than death.
India, Arabia, Palestine, and China have also been its home from the
earliest times. During the decline of the Roman Empire, when Europe
was overrun with immigration, leprosy increased to an alarming extent.
Rev. L. W. Mulhane, in a little work on “Leprosy and the Charity of the
Church,” says: “In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the awful
disease had made such headway that leper institutions might be said to
cover the face of Europe, and at one time there was scarcely a town in
France but had its leper asylum, and in the kingdom of France alone
The Eclectic Practice of Medicine - PART I - Infectious Diseases - Page 233