While it has been quite the general belief for years that the infection of measles is contained in the blood and in the nasal and buccal secretions and, perhaps, in the "scales," it is surprising on what inconclusive data this belief has been based.
Previous to 1905 the data as to the infectivity of the blood, while highly suggestive, were by no means conclusive; but in that year Hektoen reported the infection of two men with measles by inoculation with an ascitic broth culture of blood drawn from human cases of the disease during the first thirty hours of the eruption. These results left no doubt as to the presence of the virus of measles in the blood during at least the first thirty hours of the eruptive period.
The state of our knowledge as to the presence of the virus in the nasal and buccal secretions was even more