The value of sulfanilamide and scarlet fever antitoxin in the treatment of scarlet fever

Abstract

Summary 1. A series of 680 patients treated at Kingston Avenue Hospital in the spring of 1940 is reported. The cases are divided into mild, moderate, and severe groups. None of the last is included as only three such cases were encountered. 2. In the mild group of cases the controls showed a complication rate of 33.3 per cent, and the sulfanilamide treated cases, 13.1 per cent. The isolation period in the control cases (24.25 days) was longer than that in the treated cases (22.87 days). 3. In the moderate group of cases both the control cases and those treated with scarlet fever antitoxin alone had appreciably larger complication rates (60.3 per cent and 41.5 per cent) than those treated with sulfanilamide alone (24.1 per cent) or in combination with antitoxin (23.8 per cent). The isolation period in the control group (29.7 days) was appreciably longer than that in the three treated groups (25.5 days). 4. The incidence of toxic manifestations from sulfanilamide was 20 per cent, of which 71 per cent were cutaneous eruptions. These were all morbilliform in character, and 57 per cent of them appeared on the tenth day of chemotherapy. 5. None of the more serious ill effects of sulfanilamide was encountered. 6. Of 111 patients receiving scarlet fever antitoxin, only four (3.6 per cent) exhibited serum disease—all mild in severity.