https://genealogyensemble.com/2024/03/28/heartfelt-losses/

For my last story, (link above), three children of my great grand uncle died within days of each other. I had tried to find which, if any, diseases were present in that year and area, but I could find none. Of course, diseases were present at all times in the 1800s with no vaccinations or protection available.

The only way to find out the cause of the girl’s deaths was to obtain their Death Certificates which did not arrive in time to add to my last story. Now, I have received the girls’ Death Certificates from The General Register Office (GRO) of England and Wales and I know that the three girls died of scarlet fever.

The first daughter to die was their eldest, Isabella O’Bray aged 13 years It states she died at the Infectious Hospital Gillingham, Kent on the 6th of March, 1890. The cause of death was written as:

“Malignant Scarlatina’ (or Scarlet Fever).

The term ‘Malignant Scarlatina’ is not used today, although I did find an article from 1846 in the New England Journal of Medicine which used the term ‘malignant’ ⁽¹⁾

Margaret was 11 years old and also died of Malignant Scarlatina at the Infectious Hospital, Gillingham, Kent.

Minnie, aged three, their youngest child, died of Scarlet Fever exhaustion, at home.

I noticed that the deaths were registered by the children’s Uncle who lived nearby. We can only imagine the shock the parents were suffering and registering not one but three deaths of their beloved girls must have been a task they were just not up to.

Images of Measles and Scarlet Fever

In 1946 (a year after I was born), penicillin became available for the first time in the UK for public use, it transformed medicine worldwide and ushered in the age of antibiotics.

I had Scarlet Fever as a child, however, I was fortunate as antibiotics were available to me. It is a bacterial illness that develops in some people who have had strep throat. Also known as scarlatina, the disease features a bright red rash that covers most of the body., which includes a sore throat and a high fever. It is most common in children 5 to 15 years of age.

Although it was once considered a serious childhood illness, antibiotic treatments have made it less threatening. Still, if left untreated, it can result in more serious conditions that affect the heart, kidneys and other parts of the body.

On 15 March 1945, Penicillin was made available over the counter in US pharmacies, although it would not be available to British civilians – as a prescription drug – until the 1st of June, 1946, a year after Howard Florey and Ernst Chain received a Nobel prize for their work.

These two doctors began work on penicillin in 1938 at Oxford University, England. Details of their work are here:

University of Oxfordhttps://www.ox.ac.uk › news › science-blog › 75-years-..

SOURCE

(1) https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM184603040340501