Adria has just finished up with yet another childhood illness. This one is called Roseola, sometimes called “Sixth’s Disease". This is a rather interesting illness…it incubates for 1-2 weeks (meaning that it gets spread around daycare before anyone knows the kids are sick), then it manifests with virtually no symptoms except a fever. In Adria’s case, she had a mild fever (that we attributed to teething for a while) for about 3 days, but was still reasonably upbeat. When she hit 101.5 on the third day, we chickened out and took her to the doctor, worried again for her ears.

The doctor was actually not able to discover any symptoms other than the fever, either. He proposed that Adria might have Roseola, which can often manifest this way. The main characteristic of the disease is that, soon after the fever breaks, the child gets a rash on her trunk, arms, and face that lasts from a few hours to a few days. And sure enough, the very next morning after Amanda took her in, she got the rash. I kept her out of daycare for 2 days while she got over her rash (although, again, at this point she was feeling mostly fine, did not have a fever, and wasn’t contagious. But it sure looked sickly, and we’re not supposed to take her in with a rash).

There is interesting history behind the name “Sixth Disease". In 1905 (according to the Wikipedia), six common childhood rashes were given numbers. These were: measles, scarlet fever, rubella, Duke’s disease, fifths disease (erythema infectiosum, slapped cheek syndrome), and roseola. Duke’s disease turned out to be something of a myth…it was never linked to a specific pathogen, so is no longer diagnosed. Adria is immunized against measles and rubella. Scarlet fever is uncommon these days and easily treated with antibiotics. Adria has had Fifths disease, and now Sixths too. So she’s basically had all of the historical common childhood rashes that it’s possible to get these days. What a distinction!