Scarlet Fever Serum

Scarlet fever serum was a treatment used beginning in November 1900, following its development at the Sero-Therapeutic Laboratory of Rudolph Hospital in Vienna, Austria. The serum was taken from the blood of horses, and infected children were injected with it in the skin of the abdomen by Dr. Paul Moser. Mortality rates from scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, declined significantly following its use: Moser initially administered the serum mainly to the most severely ill patients, then began applying it within the first or second day of illness after observing positive results, and many of the roughly four hundred children he treated at St. Anne's Hospital showed rapid improvement, with a mortality rate of 8.9 percent compared with 13.09 percent among children in Vienna hospitals that did not use the serum, a reduction of about 40 percent. The volume of serum available was never sufficient to meet demand, and as of November 1902 a strong, concentrated version of the serum was still unavailable.