HINTS ON MEASLES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21278, 3 September 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

HINTS ON MEASLES

• " The popular opinion of measles ranks Jf, as a mild and harmless disease. In general terms this is correct, but we must not let that fact hide two other facts of tremendous import; first, that more dren under two years of age die :irom the effects of measles than from any other infectious disease, and, secondly, that a 1 child may recover from measles, but there may be something left behind. Ihc aftermath in later life in the form of heart disease, kidney trouble, bronchitis, tuberculosis and middle-ear disease deafness, is a very heavy one. The second fact is that every child is not " bound to have measles."This is a fallacy based on ignorance, and is responsible for the practice of putting all the children of the family in bed along with an infected child, so that thev may " take it, and get it done With." This belief doubtless has its origin in the fact that in the middle-ages the disease was so rampant that every child succumbed to it. But this is evidence not of inevitability of infection, but of the extreme infectiousness cf measles and the ease with which it passes on from child to child. Hundreds of /babies must have been hurried to an early grave as the result of this practice.

"In the nursing of measles, special attention should be given to the eyes by bathing them frequently with a weak solution of boracic acid. At night the eyelids should be smeared with boracic ointment. The teeth should b c brushed as usual, and the mouth rinsed with very weak Milton. The temperature being the iesult of an attempt on the part t nature to combat the disease docs not denial.d any special treatmen , but sponging with tepid water to which a little vinegar has been added is reconHnende,] as a" routine practice to help the sk .to act as a cooling surface when o y heat is high. The rash does not contiawU m THo S l,o» <1 be kept in a darkened room. -Ac* Health.