THERAPEUTIC PROCEDURES FOR SCARLET FEVER

Abstract

There is a great difference of opinion as to the efficacy of sulfanilamide in the treatment of scarlet fever. This situation is usual with any new drug, when further experience after its introduction has shown it not to be of great specific value. Reports in the literature vary from that of Le Fevre,¹ who wrote of treating a "large number of patients" in only 1 of whom there developed the usual complications of scarlet fever, such as otitis media, adenitis or mastoiditis. to that of Schwentker and Waghlestein,² who actually found more otitic complications in the patients given sulfanilamide than in the controls. We have just completed a controlled study of 293 patients with scarlet fever admitted to and discharged from the Kingston Avenue Hospital for Contagious Diseases between February and June 1939. The investigation was started in an attempt to determine the value of sulfanilamide and scarlet