COMPLICATIONS

There are few deaths following chicken pox and many of these cannot be properly blamed on the disease. There occur occasionally in poorly nourished children, gangrenous processes in the skin which may cause death. Blood poisoning may rarely follow the introduction of ordinary wound infections into the open lesions. The itching associated with the drying stage is very troublesome, and children sometimes in scratching, break the deeper layers of the skin, and small ulcers are produced which heal with scars or pits. One most often sees these scars on the forehead of children. Usually no permanent pits follow recovery.