Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 429, 4 August 1904, Page 3

Science.

DISEASE. ? ' ; apRNI YEBSALLY prevalent diseases, having e, very email mortality, 3ob cause a, greater aggregate of deathE than diseases which spread less, even if they do have a very great percentage of fatal cases. . Thus, although the namber of oaßes of influenza and measles that die may be very small as compared with the numbers infected, the total loss from these diseases is enormous. Manifestly, tben, measures taken to lessen the vicious conditions that help the diffusion of these diseases demand careful and constant consideration.

After a patient has been exposed to, and contracts infection, a variable time elapses, during which he may seem to be perfectly well. During th-'s time the infective agent is developing sufficient power to influence the whole system. This is termed ' The' Incubation Period,' as -he is slid to be' hatching' the disease. When the disease is set fairly a-going, the symptoms are hardly different, whatever the infection may be They are chiefly seen in shiverings, general aches, loss of appetite and of sleep. When this period, known as ' The Invasion,' has continued for a variable time, the characteristic symptoms of the disease occur, The fnll development of the disease lasts also a vaiiible time, and then we have the decline. In some cases this latter is very abrupt; in others it is more prolonged. Although their history is verv d 3f ective, there is reason for the belief that smallpox, measles, and scarlet fever were regarded as but varieties of one disease. As wa shall presently see, there was some justification for,, this confusion. In the 16th century measles and smallpox were clearly distinguishable from each other, but it was not till late in the 17th century that the same distinction was made between measles and scarlet fever. We Moderns, who remember how recent has been the differentiation between typhus and typhoid fevers, oannot afford to indulge in searcasm at the expease of the Ancients because of their lack of discernment. '. -' ' 1 '■:'•:'.

Trustworthy reports of epidemics of of measles suggest that even the plague itself was scarcely more deadly. The best records we have relate to the Earpes—a group of islands in. the North Atlantic. Between 1781 and 1846 no case of measles was known to have occurred in them, so that none of the inhabitants born after 1841 had suffered from the disease. When it was imported from the Shetlands in the laiter year, almost all under 65 sears of age were attacked, whilst all over that age, who had formerly suffered from it;, escaped. In the Pijis, aaothe- CjprSgmio destroyed one-fourth of population. _ Similar are common in training., s h''ps and in camps. The most recen*. iiinstration of the latter is found ih"the history of the South African Concentration Camps. Not a little of the energy wasted in attacking everything acd everybody concerned might have been saved if self-constituted censors bad had some knowledge of the history of epidemics of measles.

Since there- is universal'-susceptibility to this disease, it is evident that the longer the interval"between epidemics the greater must be the number of those who are liable to it. Towns within the] limits of civilisation and of commerce" are never free from it, so that this number is always kept within moderate bounds j but in country districts and in widely scattered places confusion is possible. In the former case, however, the fever diminishes greatly when the rash appears; but in each it begins on the face. In the latter, although the face is usually flushed, no genuine rash occurs., The eyas are bright and glistening instead of watery, as in measles, CoEvuTsions alao frequently usher in an attack of scarlet fever, but are exceedingly rare in measles. There is a peculiar imitation of it in the case "of German measles, but as each occurs in separate epidemics confusion of the two is not very likely, and is certainly not attended by any serious consequences. "