4. In the colour and figure of the eruption. In some it put on a pale red, in others a deep, and in a few a livid colour, resembling an incipient mortification. In some there appeared red blotches, in others an equally diffused redness, and in a few, eruptions like the small-pox, called by Dr. Cullen, rubiola varioloides.
5. In the duration of the eruption on the skin. It remained in most cases only three or four days; but in one, which came under my care, it remained nine days.
6. In the manner of its retrocession. I saw very few cases of its leaving the branny appearance so generally spoken of by authors on the skin.
7. In not affecting many persons, and even families who were exposed to it.
The symptoms which continued in many after the retrocession of the measles, were cough, hoarseness, or complete aphonia, which continued in two cases for two weeks; also diarrhœa, opthalmy, a bad taste in the mouth, a defect or excess of appetite, and a fever, which in some instances was of the intermitting kind, but which in more assumed the more dangerous form of the typhus mitior. Two cases of internal dropsy of the brain followed them. One was evidently excited by a fall. They both ended fatally.
During the prevalence of the disease I observed several persons (who had had the measles, and who were closely confined to the rooms of persons ill with them) to be affected with a slight cough, sore throat, and even sores in the mouth. I find a similar fact taken notice of by Dr. Quier.
But I observed further, many children to be affected by a fever, cough, and all the other symptoms of the measles which have been mentioned, except a general eruption, for in some there was a trifling efflorescence about the neck and breast. I observed the same thing in 1773 and 1783. In my note book I find the following account of the appearance of this disease in children in the year 1773. “The measles appeared in March; a catarrh (for by that name I then called it) appeared at the same time, and was often mistaken for them, the symptoms being nearly the same in both. In the catarrh there was in some instances a trifling eruption. A lax often attended it, and some who had it had an extremely sore mouth.”
I was the more struck with this disease, from finding it was taken notice of by Dr. Sydenham. He calls it a morbillous fever. I likewise find an account of it in the 2d article of the 5th volume of the Edinburgh Medical Essays. The words of the author, who is anonymous, are as follow. “During this measly season, several persons, who never had the measles, had all the symptoms of measles, which went off in a few days without any eruptions. The same persons had the measles months or years afterwards.” Is this disease a common fever, marked by the reigning epidemic, and produced in the same manner, and by the same causes, as the variolous fever described by Dr. Sydenham, which he says prevailed at the same time with the small-pox? I think it is not. My reasons for this opinion are as follow.
1. I never saw it affect any but children, in the degree that has been mentioned, and such only as had never had the measles.
2. It affected whole families at the same time. It proved fatal to one of three children whom it affected on the same day.