ROSVOLA is a common skin disease, included in the division rashes, and sometimes described tinder the term scarlet .rash. In sonic, cases it begins with slight febrile symp toms and gastric disturbance, which subside in two or three days, when the rash appears; in other cases, no preliminary fever occurs. The eruption first appears upon the face, neck, and chest, in specks or small patches, which have is tendency to coalesce; and in severe cases the whole surface of the body assumes a uniformly red tint. The eruption is usually accompanied by itching of the affected parts, and by redness and slight soreness of the throat, and seldom lasts more than two or three days, when it gradually fades away; and its disappearance is not followed by the desquamation of epidermis, which is one of the natural sequels of scarlatina and certain other skin diseases. The rash differs considerably in appearance in different cases. The disease is never contagious, and one attack affords no immunity from a second.
Among the causes of roseola may be mentioned the irritation excited by dentition, gastric and intestinal irritation, excessive acidity of the stomach, the sudden checking of profuse perspiration, the drinking of cold water when the body is over-heated, etc.
It often precedes the distinctive eruptions of small-pox and varioloid; and is noticed to be of most frequent occurrence during the prevalence of measles and scarlatina. The diseases with which it may be confounded are erythema, measles, and scarlatina, and it is sometimes impossible to discriminate with certainty between roseola and mild cases of scarlatina, when the former is attended with sore throat. The treatment is very sim ple, as the disease would probably favorably if left entirely to itself. If there is a suspicion that the case should turn out to be one of scarlatina, an emetic of ipeeacuanha should be given, and the bowels should be freely acted on. In ordinary cases, a few days' confinement to the house, a spare and non-stimulating• diet, saline laxatives—such as seidlitz powders—and an occasional warm bath, if there is much cutaneous irritation, or if the eruption has a tendency to recade too suddenly, constitute all the treatment that is expedient.