The Children's Diseases.
—The so-called children's diseases are probably the most familiar and the least regarded of all those belonging to the communicable group. Most persons, it is true, realize that scarlet fever is serious; everyone should also realize that measles and whooping-cough are serious. For example, in the State of New York during the year 1916, more children died from each of these diseases than from scarlet fever: in that year 745, or four times the number that died of scarlet fever, lost their lives from whooping-cough, while 913 died of measles. If diseases that kill hundreds of children every year are not serious, one is at a loss to know what a serious disease is.
Some parents even expose children unnecessarily to these infections on the fatalistic theory that they must have the diseases sometime, and therefore the sooner the better. Nothing could be more mistaken; the diseases are not inevitable, and there is no advantage whatever in having them if escape is possible. Moreover, serious as the children's diseases are in themselves, their after-effects may be even more serious. At
this very moment hundreds of people are going through life handicapped by weakened hearts or kidneys, by defective sight or hearing, merely because their parents considered the children's diseases necessary. The common belief that children should have these diseases as early as possible is also erroneous, since statistics show that the younger the child the more likely is the disease to prove fatal.
Every mother should realize that the children's diseases are most infectious in the early stages. Early symptoms include fever, sore throat, and nasal discharge, and the trouble at first often resembles a severe cold. During this stage the diseases are most easily communicated. Measles in particular is generally not recognized until its most infectious stage has passed. The moral to be drawn is that sore throats, coughs, and colds should never be regarded lightly, and that their spread should be prevented by all possible means.
The accompanying table taken from the regulations of the New York State Department of Health, gives symptoms of communicable diseases among children, and rules for isolation and exclusion from school.
It may be added that the ways by which poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis, is spread are not definitely known at the time of writing. We
are justified, however, in believing that investigation now in progress will make exact information available in the near future.
"The weight of present opinion inclines to the view that poliomyelitis is exclusively a human disease, and is spread by personal contact, whatever other causes may be found to contribute to its spread. In personal contact we mean to include all the usual opportunities, direct or indirect, immediate or intermediate, for the transference of body discharges from person to person, having in mind as a possibility that the infection may occur through contaminated food.
"The incubation period has not been definitely established in human beings. The information at hand indicates that it is less than two weeks, and probably in the great majority of cases between 3 and 8 days."—(Report of Special Committee on Infantile Paralysis, American Journal of Public Health, November 1916.)