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

Local Tubercular Adenitis.—Cervical.—This form is the most common of
lymphatic lesions, either in the adult or child, and is peculiarly frequent
among children of the poorer classes. Insufficient food, or, more properly
speaking, improper food, together with bad air and unhygienic
surroundings, as were seen but a few years ago in nearly all
eleemosynary institutions, give rise to a large percentage of scrofula.
Plow many of these cases were from tubercular parents could not be
determined, though, if present in latent form, the poor surroundings
and food early developed it.
The proof that environment was a productive cause is seen in the
marked decrease of cases in the past few years, with a radical change in
the care of these unfortunate waifs of humanity who are cast upon the
public welfare. In fact, the records show^ that most of the inmates are
discharged at the present day in a far healthier condition than when
admitted.
In Keating's Cvclopedia of Diseases of Children, a realistic picture of the
condition of things wd-iich existed under the old regime is given as
follows:
“Some years ago I had a very melancholy but convincing proof of the
effects of improper food in producing scrofula upon five or six hundred
children in the House of Industry (Dublin), of all ages. from a year to
puberty. The diet of the children consisted of coarse brown bread,
stirabout, and buttermilk, generally sour, for breakfast and supper; of
potatoes and esculent vegetables, either cabbage or greens, for dinner;
and sour buttermilk again for their drink. They were confined in their
dormitories and schoolrooms of insufficient extent for their number,
there being no playground for the children; consequently, they were
deprived of that exercise, so natural and necessary for the development
of the frames of young animals, and which might have enabled them to
digest in some degree their wretched and unwholesome diet.
“Under this cruel mismanagement, they lost all spirit for exercise or
play; and on visiting the rooms in which they were incarcerated, the air
of which was impure to. a degree only to be compared to jails of former
times, these wretched little beings were seen squatted along the walls of
their foul and noisome prisons, resembling in their listless inactivity an
account I have somewhere read of savages met w^ith in Australia, their
faces bloated and pale, and their stomachs as they sat nearly touching
their chins.
The Eclectic Practice of Medicine - PART I - Infectious Diseases - Page 189