MEASLES (from Ilflutell nurse/en, mnssrlrn, connected ( masolo, masa rut, Ger. llms,r, diminutive of OlItt. mash, (ter. Vase, spot. mark of a wound), known also as IZI'REOLA and AhatIln,r.t. One of the group of diseases ti.111N1 .rfmlbenur (q.v.). It is eommunieable from person to person. and seldom occurs more than once in the same individual. Its period of ineoldation is usually about a fort night : then vane lassitude and shivering. which are soon fol lowed by heat of skin, increased rapidity of the pulse, loss of appetite, and thirst. The respira tory mucous membrane is also affected, and the symptoms are very much the same as those of a severe cold in the head, accompanied with a dry cough, a slight sore throat, and sometimes tight ness of the chest.
The eruption which is characteristic of the disease usually appears upon the fourth day from the commencement of the febrile symptoms and the eatarrh, seldom earlier, but not 'Infrequent ly some days later. It is a rash, consisting at first of minute red which, as they mul tiply, coalesce into crescentic patches. It is two or three days in coming out, beginning on the face and neck, and gradually traveling clown ward. The rash fades in the stone order as it occurs: and as it begins to decline three days after its appearance, its whole duration is about a week. The reel color gives way to a somewhat yellowish tint, and the cuticle crumbles away in a line bran-like powder, the process being often attended with considerable itching.
There are two important points in which it differs from smallpox (q.v.), with which in its early stage it may be eonfounded; they are: (1) That the fever does not cease or even abate when the eruption appears, but sometimes in creases in intensity; and (2) that the disease is not more severe or more dangerous because the eruption is plentiful or early. 'fide character of the eruption, after the first day. will serve to remove all doubt regarding these two diseases; and the comparative prevalence of either disease in the neighborhood will materially assist in forming the diagnosis. It is distinguished from searlet fever (q.v.). or scarlatina. (1 ) by the presence at the outset of catarrhal symptoms, which do not occur in the latter disease, at any rate, prior to the eruption; (2) by the absence of the throat-affection, which always aecompanies well-marked eases of scarlet fever; (3) by the character of the rash, which in measles is said to present somewhat the tint of the raspberry, and in scarlet fever that of at boiled lobster: which in measles appears in erescentic patches, and in scarlet fever is universally diffused.
In ordinary uncomplicated measles the prag. indsis is 11111104 always favorable. The chief danger is from inflammation of smile of the tex tures that compose the lungs. and in feeble chil dren it often leaves chronic bronchial mischief behind it. No age is exempt fr the disease, but it is much more common in childhood) than subsequently. a second attnek tieing comparative. ly rare.
In mild forms of the disease nothing more is requisite than to keep the patient on a low diet. attend to the state of the bowels, and prevent exposure to cold. which is best aeedmiplished by keeping him in bed with the ordinary warmth to %%kWh he is accustomed in health. If the chest symptoms urgent, they mist be treated aecording to their nature. Bronchitis (q.v.), sometimes extending into pneumonia (q.v.). is most to be feared. If the eruption disappears prematurely, it may sometimes be brought back by placing the patient in a warm bath. In such are often required. but must, of course, only be given by the advice of the physician. Tlw patient must be earefully pro teeted from exposure to cold for a week or Iwo after the disease has apparently disappeared. as the lungs and mucous coat of the bowels arc for some time very susceptible to inflammatory at tacks.
Except for the lesions of the skin there arc no characteristic pathological changes in measles. As in other infectious diseases, degenerations in the internal organs, especially in the kidneys, are not uncommon. Extension of the catarrhal in flammation of the bronchi to the lungs frequent ly results in a broneho-pnemnonia. As to the specific cause of the disease nothing is definitely known. Canon and Rielieke in 1892 reported the discovery in fourteen eases of measles of a pe culiar bacillus which they considered specific. This bacillus was found in the blood, more rarely in the catarrhal exudate, and was from five to seven mieromillimeters long. It was sometimes abundant, at other times only a few could be found. Its cultivation on ordinary media was difficult. These observations as yet lack con firmation.