CAUSE
Reading edition
The cause of scarlet fever is a small round bacterium known as the streptococcus of scarlet fever. This germ is in the secretion from the throat, and nose, in discharges from the ears, in pus from abscesses in the neck and in the discharges from infected wounds. The germ is very tenacious of life. In dried secretions it may remain alive for a long time. Instances are known where clothing, worn by children when sick with the disease, has been put away in a dark place. When this clothing was brought out many years later and given healthy children to wear they contracted scarlet fever.