Recent Advances in Our Knowledge of Measles

Abstract

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 unsatisfactory than that in regard to the blood, although clinical observations and Mayr's experiments on children had made it fairly certain that these secretions were infective for man, and the same author's negative experiments with the "scales" had also shown that it was fairly certain that these did not contain the virus of the disease.The literature of measles contains many reports of attempts to produce measles by various procedures in animals other than monkeys, but Josias1 seems to have been the first to attempt to inoculate the monkey with measles. His work had been inspired by Chavigny's2 reported obser¬ vation of a monkey that had developed measles after having been in close contact with a case of the disease in the person of its keeper. In 1898 Josias reported attempts to infect monkeys with measles by various methods and he apparently obtained positive results in some instances.1. Josias, Albert: Recherches exp\l=e'\rimentale sur la transmissibilit\l=e'\de la rougeole aux animaux. Med.

Experimental Vaccination Against Measles

“…This leads to the conclusion that, at present, only man himself can be used as a definite indicator of viru¬ lence of a measles vaccine. Our findings, in mon¬ keys as well as in man, seem to confirm the results obtained by Enders and co-workers 4 …”

Studies on the pathogenesis of rinderpest in experimental cattle I. Correlation of clinical signs, viraemia and virus excretion by various routes

“…after the appearance of the rash (Ruckle & Rogers, 1957). According to Papp (1937) it could also be demonstrated in the blood during the incubation period, by the subinoculation of leucocytes into susceptible children; Enders, Katz & Medearis (1959) found that monkeys developed measles viraemia 5-7 days after inoculation and 3-4 days before the first clinical signs.…”

Multiplication of measles virus in cell cultures.

“…Since consistent work with measles virus became feasible, there have been several reviews (5,13,15,32,34,66,78,141). The purpose of this review is to assemble data on the multiplication of measles virus in cell cultures, and to try to elucidate the mechanism of multiplication of this virus.…”