MODIFYING MEASLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 28 June 1926, Page 8

MODIFYING MEASLES

NEW TREATMENT ADOPTED

WHAT SCIENCE IS DOING FOB THE SICK

The -blood serum of adults who had measles in childhood may bp-used to modify the disease in children, sp; that it will take only a mild form,.devoid of serious after effects, and. yet will give immunity for life just aF the normal form of the disease does* states. Science Service correspondent* This is the conclusion of; Professor R. Debre and; Dr. Joannon, of the: University of Paris. Aledieal. School, re ‘ pprtcd; to the Health Committee of the League of Nations. More than, 1000 injections of the. serum have been made without any laid effects. The efforts of Dr. Lon 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. Bernard said, “prophylactic methods have keen used to some extent in the United States and Germany to secure temporary immunity. A serum from convalescent, eases 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 Debre, where the injections are made only between the sixth and the tenth day after infection. A serum shortage problem was solved by the discovery that the serum of-adults who have iong 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 Franco alone, and statistics, from the most important countries fjhow that the death rate from measles is falling more slowly than, that of diphtheria, smaljr pox, ' scarlet fever, and whooping.*

cough. Aleaslcs caused about . a million deaths in Europe between 1900 and 1910,• and in the death registration area of the United. States from 1901 tp 1920 there were more than 100,090 deaths. Measles is more, dangerous ift cities than in the country, and in. Europe at any rate tiie , danger i§ directly- proportioned to the density of the population, Dr. Bernard;- said, j: Although as old as medical history, and so. common that in cities over 90 per cent: .of the population have luia tiie disease bv,. the age; of eighteen; m.easles is still , one of the: mystery diseases which it has been extremely difficult to combat. It is believed to bq caused by an extremely small'organism which cannot he seeniwitlnthe ordinary! microscope, and. which’ pasess through a filter, which , stpps. ordinary gejrms. i; With the possible exception-ofi small* pox, it i?, the most: contagious disease known to man, and, according to the United States Public Health Service, if is difficult to control because the symp* toms of the disease are not obvious until about four days after infection! “The importance of measles is frequently under-estimated,” said Dr. Viet tor, GY Vaughan, chairman of the division of medical science of the -National Research Council, and oiie of Amerinds leading epidemiologists,, “and it Im,? been commonly believed < that the clifj: ease acts as a weeding-out process ft> eliminate the unfit at a very early agpj and docs no harm to the strong. Oft the contrary, a study of measures in the United States army camps during, the World 'War. revealed that' a personi-who has recently had measles is ten times more likely to die from pneumonia than one who lias not. M

“It is not over-sanguine to claim,” Dr. Vaughan . continued, “that if this disease, together with,whooping-cough* diphtheria, and scarlet fever, could) entirely suppressed the average length of. life'would he increased by ■ at- Fact ten years.” i