Background. Scarlet fever, an infectious disease caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, largely disappeared in developed countries during the twentieth century. In recent years, scarlet fever is on the rise again, and there is a need for a better understanding of possible factors driving transmission. Methods. Using historical case notification data from the three largest cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague) from 1906 to 1920, we inferred the transmission rate for scarlet fever using...