“Experimental measles”

Abstract

The search for the cause of an infectious disease like measles becomes greatly simplified when we learn how to secure the unknown “virus” in relatively pure form unmixed with common microbes. Various methods may now be applied to the investigation of the virus. The transmission of measles from mother to fetus would seem to point to the presence of the cause of the disease in the blood. In the twenty cases of fetal measles collected by Ballantyne, it seemed that the infection of mother and fetus must have been simultaneous, because the eruption in both corresponded in character. In order to learn something further as to the presence in the blood of the cause of measles, inoculations of human beings would seem to be necessary; because, so far as we now know, this disease is probably not communicable to animals. Grünbaum's experiments with measles in the chimpanzee appear to have given negative results.

Critical review of the literature shows that almost without exception the recorded experiments in the inoculation of measles, for which positive results have been claimed, are without real significance. The claims that the experiments of Home, of Wachsel, of Speranza, of Katona, of McGirr, of Bufalini gave definitely positive results do not stand close scrutiny in the light of the evidence at hand : In many instances the rubeolous nature of the sickness, sometimes very mild, following the inoculation and regarded by the experimenters as measles, is not at all securely established, and in practically all cases the possibility of natural infection was not excluded. These experiments, practically all of which were undertaken with the idea of producing a modified form of the disease, consequently permit no conclusion as to the infectiousness of the blood or other substances in measles. If we accept Mayr's results as they are given by him it may be concluded that in measles, nasal mucus and cutaneous scrapings (containing blood, epithelial dhbris, and tissue juices) may contain the cause of measles at or near the height of the eruption.