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24
MEASLES-ORDER OF BIRTH.
The following points bearing on the incidences of Measles
and its spread are of some interest. The point under investigation
is an attempt to measure the relative importance of infection
derived from a general source as compared with the chance of one
member of a family infecting another. The following tables give
the order of birth and age of attack. Both records are to some
extent incomplete, as the pressure of economic circumstances and
increase in parental knowledge prevent medical attention being
applied for, as the family gets larger. The economic stress is
heavier, the mean size of family is larger, and the mean age of
mother at birth is greater in the second than in the first record
Further, each case is the first case notified so that each family
occurs once only in the record. It is, to be assumed therefore
that the chance of family infection will be reduced to a minimum as
it must necessarily depend on mild or unrecognisable disease.

+
r=.144—.034