View report page

25
The public cannot be aware of the serious drain upon life which
an outbreak, of measles entails; if they did, greater precautions would
be taken to prevent its spread. It is the commonest of expressions,
"Oh, it is only Measles," and the superstition is general that a child
must get Measles, and the sooner he gets it the better. Probably, no
superstition is attended with more disastrous results. The utter folly
of such a belief cannot be too strongly emphasized. After a certain
period, the older the child, the less susceptible he is to the disease,
and even if they contract the disease, children over 5 years of age
rarely succumb. The age at which relatively the greatest number of
children die of Measles is the second year of life; while after the third
year has passed there is a rapid decrease in the proportion of children
dying of this disease.
Dr. Theodore Thompson, in his report to the Local Government
Board on the control of Measles, states " that the incidence of attack
is different from that of death. For while the main incidence of death
is on the second year, the incidence of attack is chiefly on the third,
fourth and fifth years. From this different incidence of attack and
of death it results that the fatality from Measles is very much higher
in the second year of life than in any of those succeeding years. While,
therefore, more children die of Measles in the second year of life than
at any other age, more children are attacked by this disease in each
i f the three years following; so that children in the second year of
life, although less susceptible to attack, are much more likely to die
if attacked than any other children."
It is more than probable that the above remarks hold true of
the present epidemic, though it is impossible to produce figures to
verify them. Dependent, as we are, upon school notification, it
follows that the majority of cases amongst children under school age
would not be reported except where children from the same house
attended school. The following figures, though, would suggest that
the number of deaths which occurred at different age-groups did not
represent the relative number of cases at the same ages. Three hundred
and forty-five cases were reported and investigated, and the ages of
these were:—
Under 1 year. 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 8-9 9-10 Age uncertain.
11 21 8 12 55 92 74 36 3 5 28