Measles Detector

Most communicable of all contagious diseases is measles. It spreads much faster than its nearest morbid rivals, smallpox and influenza. And it infects practically every person exposed to it, unless he has been immunized by an attack of the disease. In this country next winter and spring some 800,000 people, chiefly children, will catch measles. Only a few will die, and those the victims chiefly of broncho-pneumonia which often accompanies a measles attack. But many will suffer the rest of their lives from poor hearing which measles often initiates.

Symptoms of this widespread disease are well known: first, congested, watery eyes, sensitive to light; at the same time, or a few hours later, an acute cold, sneezing, running nose, harsh cough. Within 24 to 48 hours the special signs of measles appear on the inside surfaces of the cheeks and lips. These are bright red spots with minute bluish-white centres. On the fourth day of the attack, bluish red spots appear behind the ears, at the border of the hair, at the temples, at the back of the neck, and spread over the entire body. The rash usually lasts four days.*

Cause. Until last week the cause of measles was uncertain. Bacteriologists for years suspected streptococci, the great family of germs responsible for scarlet fever, septic sore throat, erysipelas, childbed fever. But no one ever saw the germ of measles. Therefore bacteriologists tossed the subject into that catchpot of medical conjecture labeled VIRUS. Only means of immunity which proved effective was hypodermic injection of serum from the blood of people convalescing from measles; or inoculations of the nasal secretions of measles victims in the first stage of the disease.

Last week Dr. Jean Broadhurst, 64, tall, stately, silver-haired professor of bacteriology at Columbia University, announced in the Journal of Infectious Diseases that by-products of the measles virus, known as inclusion bodies, can be brought to sight by a blue-black stain called nigrosin which pathologists use to color and distinguish certain cells of the central nervous system from all other cells. No bacteriologist before Miss Broadhurst, who began her long career by teaching biology at New Jersey State Normal School, seems to have used nigrosin to stain, and therefore to see, these measles inclusion bodies.

Eventual result of this research may be a vaccine against measles. But there are immediate results which Columbia's efficient publicity department promptly caused Dr. Broadhurst to advocate. Said she: "Nurses and doctors will no longer be forced to wait until a rash or fever appears before they know whether a sore throat signifies merely a cold or presages the measles. They will now be able to place a specimen of mucus from nose and throat stained by nigrosin under a microscope and tell in a moment whether or not the virus bodies that cause the measles are present. More important still, they will be able to detect carriers--people who carry the virus bodies about with them, infecting others, yet who are themselves immune to the disease."

-To be distinguished from measles is scarlet fever, whose rash is bright yellow-red and which gives a strawberry color to the tongue. Scarlet fever rash rarely touches the face. The rash of German measles, a mild disease, is rose-red, or brown.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.