May 24, 2009

I was perusing on-line letters at the Wisconsin Historical Society website, as they have placed a whole bunch of imaged material on the internet. I was reading a letter from Caroline Quiner Ingalls, the Caroline of Little House fame. She was writing to her sister, both sisters living in Wisconsin at the time, 1861. There was a passage in the letter where she mentions one of her relatives had come down with a scarlet-type fever where their entire body became red and inflamed then resulting in the necrosis of much of their skin. Caroline noted that the skin peeled off in great quantities and that fingernails fell off. I cannot get this image out of my head. I think I would have saved the 'castings'. They could have been donated to some historical society for all to view. Perhaps someone still possesses these items and maybe they could show up on something like Antiques Roadshow; I wonder if they would allow human effects such as that on the show; I would definitely be watching. Or, perhaps the skin/fingernails could be used as an episode on History Detectives. Alas, I am sure the effects are long gone.