When my Dad was about one year old. 1914, they thought he had died from Scarlet Fever. Grandma put on his little Baptism gown and laid him on the kitchen table while people were notified.
About then, “Crazy Aunt Mary” came downstairs, she really was crazy ( mentally challenged we call it now ) and lived at the Farm with her niece, my Grandmother from when Grandma & Grandpa got married until her death in the early 1950’s. About 50 years.
Anyway, she went up to look at him, turned and said, “He ain’t dead. Go get me a really dirty sock.” She put ½ an onion and other stuff I was never told what it was, placed it on his chest and up under his chin. What else she did, if anything, I do not know. In a little while, he woke up. Long story short, married, 7 surviving children, and lived to 86. Basically died from complications from a series of strokes.
So, my conclusion is that an ‘crazy old aunt’ is the best last ditch stand against Scarlet Fever. 