Talk:Velvet Scarlatina/@comment-26432591-20150528065650/@comment-4010415-20150528150041

"Scarlet fever (also called scarlatina in older literature)[1] is an infectious disease which most commonly affects children. Signs and symptoms include sore throat, fever, and a characteristic red rash. Scarlet fever is usually spread by inhalation. There is no vaccine, but the disease is effectively treated with antibiotics. Most of the clinical features are caused by erythrogenic toxin, a substance produced by the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus) when it is infected by a certain bacteriophage.

Before the availability of antibiotics, scarlet fever was a major cause of death. It also sometimes caused late complications, such as glomerulonephritis and endocarditis leading to heart valve disease, all of which were protracted and often fatal afflictions at the time." Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Velveteen Rabbit takes place back before antibiotics were available to fight it. Back then, people would sometimes burn possessions that had been in contact with the infected, in an attempt to make sure other people wouldn't end up infected. Since the stuffed toy rabbit belonged to a kid who came down with scarlet fever, the kid's parents decided to burn it as well as the other toys.