SCARLET FEVER CURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 27, 31 December 1925, Page 2

SCARLET FEVER CURE.

USE' OF INOCULATION. CLAIM MADE IN AMERICA. An antitoxin which, it is claimed, will cure scarlet fever, has been discovered by American research workers. This antitoxin not only reduces the temperature of a patient suffering from scarlet fever, but minimises tho chances of the development of serious septic complications. Furthermore, a toxin which is used to produce the serum has been proved to immunise anyone who would otherwise be susceptible to the disease, when injected as a preventive. Tho antitoxin has been tried in America with extraordinary results. Patients have been cured in a few days, and the mortality has been considerably reduced, says an English paper.

Now it is being tested in a number of the largo fever hospitals in Great Britain. Tho results are not yet available, but it is understood that in the cases where tho antitoxin has been administered unusually rapid recoveries have occurred.

Attempts have been made in America for years to isolate the organism responsible for the disease, but until recently without success. Research workers, however, about two years ago, came on the track of the casual microbe, which was found to be a type of streptococcus. Subsequent experiments were carried out mainly by two doctors, George and Gladys Dick, who proved that, this organism was the actual cause of scarlet fever.

This discovery naturally led to tho production of an antitoxin, the administration of which, both in toxic cases —characterised by the scarlatinal rash and fever—and septic cases, such as the middle-ear, joint and other complications, was strikingly successful.

Largo doses of serum have been necessary until quite recently to neutralise the toxin and deal with tho sepsis in a serious case of scarlet fever, but apparently this difficulty has keen overcome. It is now possible to obtain the antidote in such a concentrated form that one dose of 10 cm. (rather less than half an ounce) injected into a muscle is sufficient to

bring down the temperature within from 24 to 36 hours. It is said that complications hardly ever develop, provided the antitoxin is given early. This is a remarkable advance in treatment when it is realised that such conditions as nephritis (acute kidney disease), midale-ear disease and mastoid trouble were extremely common. As a matter of fact they were the rule rather than the exception.