The status of measles among the infectious diseases of infancy and childhood appears to have changed within the last twenty-five years, primarily owing to the increasing percentage of mortality as compared with that of other acute diseases, notably diphtheria and scarlet fever. The 10,000 annual deaths from measles and its complications, as recorded in the registered area of the United States, allow no optimism either on the part of the laity or on the part of the medical profession. Debré and Joannon1 reported that during the first decade of the present century, measles occupied the foremost place in the causes of child mortality, claiming, as it actually did, a formidable aggregate of about 1,000,000 juvenile victims in the principal countries of Europe.
To combat the ravages of this disease, many able minds of Europe and America have long been mobilized to work out a means of practical strategy. It