Measles – History of discovery

Measles – History of discovery

Measles is a relatively new disease of humans and probably evolved from an animal morbilivirus.

Measles or rubeola is a highly communicable viral disease that is characterized by a reddish brown rash that lasts for five to six days. Although a rare side effect, post-infection encephalitis can lead to permanent brain damage. Almost every susceptible child exposed to another child in the early stages of measles will contract the disease.

The first scientific description of measles and its distinction from smallpox and chickenpox is credited to the Persian physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (860-932), known to the West as "Rhazes", who 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.

In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide. In 1954, the virus causing the disease was isolated from an 11-year old boy from the United States, and adapted and propagated on chick embryo tissue culture. To date, 21 strains of the measles virus have been identified. Licensed vaccines to prevent the disease became available in 1963.

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.
Measles – History of discovery