The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1922-07-14
IMMUNITY IN
MEASLES SERUM
Doctor Rudolf DegkWtz Reports
Successful Experiments With
New Preventive.
MEDICAL SCIENCE INTERESTED
Hope to Conquer the Most Deadly OF
all chlIdren's Diseases-Dang In
Public Apathy and Ignorance
Of infectious Malady.

OF lnfeououe Mataoy.
Manchester, England.-Dr. Rudolf
Degkwitz announces In the Deutsche
Medizinische Wochenschrift Gan au-
thoritative publication) that he has
succeeded In comforting immunity to
measles by injecting serum prepared
from convalescent patients.
"This may prove to be one of the
greatest epochs in preventive medi-
cine," writes a medical correspondent
of the Manchester Guardian. I'm his
last series Of LOO cases Degkwitz
claims that all the contacts inoculated
were completely immunized or so pro-
tected that the disease was developed
only in it's mildest form and there was
no untoward result.
eff these results are confirmed and
the method can be effectively and gen.
orally applied, the result should be an
even greater saving of life than has
accrued from Jenner's discovery OF
Vaccination.
Most Deadly Of All.
measles, the most deadly OF all
the diseases of childhood continues
to be the least controllable OF the
scourges which regularly affect our
people" the Guardians correspond
ent saws warningly. with the pos
sible exception of influenza there Is
no form of epidemic disease in face
of which preventive medicine is so
helpless. The causes for this are
mainly two. IN the first place the
disease is not only highly infective
but it's infectivity is highest before
the symptoms can be recognized. The
child which contracts measles has
three or four days in which to infect
his family, his friends and his school
fellows before it is known definitely
that he is suffering from measles at
all. The second cause is public apathy
and ignorance Of the dangerous nature
of the complaint.
: "Half a century ago there appears
to have been some justification for
regarding measles as trif1ing dis
order, something that every child must
: get over and the sooner the better.
Owing to the operation of the still
, mysterious laws which govern changes
in type Of disease, scarlet fever, which
, was Justly dreaded, has declined IN
yirulence and ceased to be one of the
= major dangers Of childhood: diphtherie
. is also much milder in form and Its
!, dangers can almost be eliminated by
! the early use of anti-toXin. But
= measles has become more deadly year
4 by year.
:. Recent Epidemic.
- sThe present writer can recall one
y recent epidemic of measles in a Ian
= cashire town which slew in six months
!, precisely the number Of children thai
= had succumbed to scarlet fever In tel
wears. Yet it is still not an unknown
thing for a mother to put the othel
= children in bed with a case Of measles
so that they may all get over 1t to
gether,' and It Is the constant com
plant of doctors that they are no
called In until the child Is blue iron
e pneumonia and beyond all aid.
It Compare this apathy with the hor
o ror Of smallpox. Yet, before the IN
t. PRODUCTION of vaccination, when small
Y pox was regarded as the nationa
II plague, the death rate from this Gauss
n averaged 42O per million. In 1915 tn
e death rate from measles was 1888 pc
million. Neither the government no
!. the local authorities seem to hav
walked up to the facts represented b.
]. these figures. We continue to laVisl
!. enormous sums Of money on the hos
a pital isolation Of scarlet fever wit
= very little effect on the prevalence o
~ the disease, but hospital accommoda
20 ton for measles IS very rarely Pre-
y, y vided.
% Scarlet fever is compulsorily not
fable: the notification Of measles
optional and, in these days OF ant
spending as opposed to true econom!
IN, ohovancQo