MEASLES. 



25 



For treatment, see article on Measles. 



/hoping Cough. (See Whooping Cough, p. 70.) 



finm Boil. (See DOMESTIC SURGERY.) 



1 1 ydrocephalus. (See Water on t/te Brain.) 



I itius-msception of Bowels. (See article on Constipation.) 



Incontinence of Urine. (See Bed-wetting.) 



Infantile Paralysis. (See Children's Paralysis.) 



Intertrigo. (See CJuifing.) 



Laryngismus Stridnlus. (See False Croup.) 



Measles. This is certainly the most common of all the diseases of childhood, and 

 few children indeed escape their attack of measles, which is almost looked upon 

 as one of the early and necessary consequences of existence. It is not, properly 

 speaking, a disease peculiar to early age, but being one of the most infectious of 

 the infectious diseases, human beings seem invariably to contract it when they 

 are first brought in contact with its influence. When measles attacks a " virgin 

 population," as it is called, i.e., a population which has not previously suffered from 

 the disease in question, it is found to attack all ages alike, and the elderly are found 

 to suffer quite as severely as the young. Thus, in 1845, the measles invaded the 

 Faroe Islands for the first time, and it was found that scarcely one of the inhabitants 

 escaped being attacked by the disease ; and one of the consequences of our annexation 

 of the Fiji Islands has been the importation of measles there, and -we need not do 

 more than recall to the mind of the reader the severity of the epidemic and the large 

 number of fatal cases. The disease is far more severe and far more fatal when it 

 invades a country for the first time ; and it seems as though we inherited from our 

 measles-infected ancestors and transmitted to our offspring some power of resisting 

 the attack, which is not found among those whose history records no epidemic of this 

 commonest of maladies. Even in this country we find that measles is capable of 

 attacking old persons as well as young, and no one can be considered as freed from 

 all liability until he has once suffered. It is rare for a person to suffer more than 

 once, and, as a rule, one attack is found an effectual protection ; but this is not 

 always the case; and every one who has had an average experience of life can recall 

 cases of persons who have suffered a second time from undoubted measles. 



Measles is so infectious that it is often impossible to say how the child contracted 

 it, jine^if one child in a house suffers, it is almost the invariable rule that all the 

 denizens of the nursery suffer by turns. The infection of measles is probably 

 ronveyod by the air, and consists, it is not unlikely, of fine particles given off with 

 tlu' breath, or rubbed off the skin, which, floating in the atmosphere, are swallowed 

 or inhaled, and give rise to measles in the person by whom they are taken in. 



" Measles being so infectious," the question may be asked, " is it any use to try 

 and prevent them ? " To this we should say, decidedly, yes, and especially if the 

 child be very young. We think no mother would be justified in running any risk 



