The first description of measles as a disease different from smallpox is attributed to Persian physician Rhazes of Baghdad in the tenth century. The Persian physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (860-932), known to the West as "Rhazes", published a book entitled The Book of Smallpox and Measles (in Arabic: Kitab fi al-jadari wa-al-hasbah).
Rhazes referred to measles as ‘hasbah’ (eruption) and regarded it as a modification of smallpox. One distinction noted was that ‘anxiety of mind, sick qualms and heaviness of heart oppress more in the measles than in the smallpox. Repeated epidemics of illness characterized by a rash are recorded in European and Far Eastern populations between AD 1 and 1200.
The first written record of measles in the United States was in 1657 by a citizen of Boston, Massachusetts. John Hull, in his personal journal, stated "the disease of measles went through the town, but fortunately there were very few deaths".
Francis Home, a Scottish physician, demonstrated in 1757 that measles is caused by an infectious agent in the blood of patients. He first attempted to make a vaccine. By then, measles was a worldwide killer.
In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide. In 1954 the virus that causes measles was isolated in Boston, Massachusetts, by John F. Enders and Thomas C. Peebles.
Many of the basic principles of measles epidemiology and infection were elucidated by the studies of Peter Panum, a Danish physician who went to the France Islands in 1846 during a large-scale measles epidemic. Panum deduced the highly contagious nature of the disease the 14-day incubation period, the lifelong immunity present in older residents, and postulated a respiratory route of transmission.
By the 1950s, measles deaths had dropped to only 400 to 500 a year, thanks to the availability of antibiotics and improvements in sanitation, medical supportive care and nutrition.
Discovery of measles
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| Francis Home |
