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

is responsible, not only for diphtheria, scarlet fever, and a host of other
contagious diseases, but also for this plague of the world, and lip
chancre is not uncommon.
Nursing.—A syphilitic wet-nurse may convey to her charge the disease,
or the babe may infect through the nipple her nurse. The physician who
is called to treat all classes of patients may, through an abraded finger,
receive the infection while administering to a patient in confinement.
A very rare, though possible cause, would be through shaving, or the
use of the thermometer, though the stropping of the razor makes this
very unlikely, and the wiping and dipping in cold water each time after
taking the temperature would also seem proof against contagion by this
means. Recently there has been quite an agitation for individual
communion-cups in the religious rites of administering the Lord's
Supper, to prevent this and other diseases. I am inclined to believe that
such tales by patients are to hide their own' lust and indiscretion.
Neither am I inclined to believe that vaccination has been such a prolific
source of the disease, although I admit its possibility. Dr. Robert Cory,
chief vaccinater to the National Vaccine Establishment, England, in his
experiments, as recorded in Keating's Encyclopedia of Children, showed
how little danger there is from vaccination.
Dr. Cory believed it impossible to convey syphilis by vaccination ; to
prove which, he repeatedly vaccinated himself from children who were
plainly and actively syphilitic. A number of these were barren of results,
but finally, on July 6, 1881, he was not so fortunate in escaping. He
vaccinated himself in three places from the lymph taken from a threemonths
old child that had eruptions and' sores which were evidently
syphilitic. In three weeks syphilitic papules appeared at the seat of two
of the punctures, and were followed in due time by sore throat, roseola,
and other positive evidence of constitutional syphilis,—thus proving
that, while it is possible to acquire syphilis by vaccination, it must occur
very rarely in active practice.
Hereditary Transmission.—In hereditary transmission, nature plays
some queer and unexplainable pranks. Two conditions are so well
known that they have come to be recognized as established laws:
Profeta's and Colle's,—the former, in which syphilitic parents beget a
healthy child, the offspring acquiring immunity during gestation, which
protects it from either parent; the other, Colle's law, is where a mother
bears a syphilitic child, and she herself becomes immune, and can not
The Eclectic Practice of Medicine - PART I - Infectious Diseases - Page 217