Today cases of it are rare. Symptoms you are likely to notice The symptoms of scarlet fever are a sore throat, chills, fever, vomiting , and, most visibly, a characteristic bright red rash of the skin on the face, neck, chest, and abdomen. A physician also detects scarlet fever by pressing on the rash and watching to see whether it turns a lighter color. If scarlet fever is diagnosed, it is treated with antibiotics to kill the bacteria. Stages and progress The disease has an incubation period of three to five days.
Symptoms begin on the second day and last from four to ten days.
Scarlet fever can, if untreated, infect the heart , in which case it is called rheumatic fever , or the kidneys , in which case it becomes glomerulonephritis . Both are more serious diseases that may ensue some two or three weeks after scarlet fever. Prevention Scarlet fever is very contagious and contact with someone with the disease should be avoided. All strep infections, such as strep throat, should be treated with antibiotics. The English Hippocrates During the seventeenth century an English physician named Thomas Sydenham distinguished scarlet fever from measles for the first time.