The Project Gutenberg EBook of Measles by W. C. Rucker

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Title: Measles

Author: W. C. Rucker

Release Date: November 29, 2006 [Ebook #19965]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEASLES***

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

MEASLES

By

W. C. RUCKER

_Assistant Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service_

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SUPPLEMENT NO. 1
TO THE
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS
JANUARY 24, 1913

[EDITION OF JUNE, 1916]

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1916

MEASLES.

By W. C. RUCKER, Assistant Surgeon General, United States Public Health
Service.

Over 11,000 American children died of measles in the year 1910. This did
not include a large number who died of broncho-pneumonia, a great number
of cases of which, in children, are caused by measles. Sixty-eight and
two-tenths per cent of all deaths from broncho-pneumonia occur in children
under 5 years of age, a time of life when measles is most apt to occur.
But the story of the ravages of this disease is not complete without the
mention of the large number of cases of tuberculosis which follow an
attack of it. Less frequently inflammation of the ear or the eye may be
left behind as a mark of a visitation of this common disease. From a
public health standpoint, then, measles is a disease of prime importance.

Long association with a disease breeds a contempt for it, and measles, in
common with the other diseases of childhood, has come to be looked upon as
an unavoidable accompaniment of youth.

Each autumn when school opens there is an increase in the number of cases
of measles, and as the season progresses they gradually increase, and
winter frequently sees the disease spreading in epidemic form. Hirsch has
collected data of 309 epidemics of measles, and ha