MODIFYING MEASLES

Evening Post, Volume 137, Issue CXI, 10 June 1926, Page 15

MODIFYING MEASLES

NEW TREATMENT ADOPTED

WHAT SCIENCE IS DOING FOR THE SICK. l

The blood serum of adults who had measles in childhood may be used to >modify the disease in children so that it will take only a mild form, devoid of serious after effects, and yet will give immunity for life just as the normal form of the disease does, states '' Science Service " correspondent. This iB the conclusion of Professor R. Debre and Dr. Joannon,' of the University of Paris Medical School, reported to the Health Committee of the League of Nations. More than a thousand injections of tho serum have been mride without any bad effects. The efforts of Dr. Leon Bernard, of the University of Paris, resulted in the establishment of two prophylactic stations in Paris for the treatment of the disease. "Up to the present time," Dr. Barnard said, "prophylactic methods have been used to some extent in the United States and Germany to secure temporary immunity. A scrum from convalescent cases was used and injected in patients during the first six days after infection. "But a durable immunity may be developed if the serum is not injected until the germs have had more time to incubate, as in. the modified procedure of Professor Dehre, where the injections are made only between tho sixth and the tenth day after infection. A serum shortage problem was solved by the discovery that the serum of adults who have long since recovered from measles was as efficient as that taken from convalescent children." It is often forgotten, Dr. Bernard said, that measles is a serious disease, and there is no other disease to which man is so universally susceptible. Every year there are thousands of deaths in France alone, and statistics from the most important countries show that the death rate from measles is falling more slowly than that of diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, and whoopingcough. ' Measles caused about a million deaths in Europe between 1900 and 1910, and in the death registration area of the United States from 1901 to 1920 there were more than 100,000 deaths. Measles is more dangerous in cities than in the country, and in Europe at any rate the danger is directly proportioned to the density of the population, Dr. Bernard said. Although as old as medical history, and so common that in cities over 90 per cent, of the population have had the disease by the age of eighteen, measles is s,till one of the mystery diseases which it has been extremely difficult to combat. It is believed to be caused by an extremely small organism which cannot be seen with the ordinary microscope, and which passes through a filter which stops ordinary germs. With the possible exception of smallpox it is tho most contagious disease known to: man, and according to the United States Public Health Service it is difficult to control because the symptoms of the disease are not obvious until about four days after infection. "The importance of measles-is frequently under-estimated,'' said Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, chairman of the division of medical science of the National Research Council, and one of America's leading epidemiologists, "and it has been "commonly believed that the disease acts as a weeding-out process to eliminate the unfit at a very early age, and does no harm to the strong. On the contrary, a study of" measles in the United States army camps during tho World War revealed that a person who has recently had measles is ten times more likely to die from pneumonia than one who has not. . "It is not over-sanguine to claim," Dr. Vaughan continued, "that if this disease, together with whooping-cough, diphtheria, and scarlet fever, could be entirely suppressed tho average length of life would be increased by at least ten years."