1794. 28 had measles, all recovered.
1798. 69 had measles, 6 girls died.
1800. 66 had measles, 4 boys died.
1802. 8 had measles, one died.
The general testimony in the last quarter of the 18th century is that measles, if a common affection, was not usually a severe one. Heysham, of Carlisle, says that measles came thither in 1786 from the south-west of Northumberland, “where, I am informed, they proved very fatal”; the epidemic began at Carlisle in August, and continued very general until January, 1787, but extremely mild and favourable, only 28 having died (26 under five years, 2 from five to ten), out of “some six or seven hundred, I suppose.” The previous epidemic of measles at Carlisle in 1780 (mortality not stated), had followed a most fatal epidemic of smallpox in 1779; and although the epidemic of mild measles in 1786 did not follow a great epidemic of smallpox, it followed a high and steady annual average of deaths of infants and young children from that cause year after year[1206]. In both years of the measles at Carlisle, there were no deaths from smallpox. In like manner at Leeds, in 1790, measles followed smallpox, and was extremely mild; Lucas wrote of it, “I have not seen one instance of a fatal termination[1207].” This was the time (1785) when Heberden said of the disease in London, just as Willis, Harris and others had said of it and of smallpox together a century before: “The measles being usually attended with very little danger, it is not often that a physician is employed in this distemper.”
Increasing mortality from Measles at the end of the 18th century.
There were epidemics of measles with high mortality in the 17th and 18th centuries, occurring in special circumstances of time and place, of which instances have been given. But in general the position of measles was not then so high among the causes of death in infancy and childhood as it afterwards became. It is not easy to demonstrate the exact proportions by figures, even for London; the bills of the Parish Clerks are less trustworthy for measles than for smallpox, for the reason that deaths from scarlatina were probably included among the former (see under Scarlatina). For example, the ratio of 1·10 per cent. measles deaths for the ten years 1781-90 in the following table should be only 0·70 if the 793 deaths in 1786, supposed scarlatinal, be left out. But, taking the bills as they stand, they show an increasing ratio of measles (as well as of whooping-cough) among the deaths from all causes towards the end of the 18th century.
Percentage of Measles and Whooping-cough in all London deaths, 1731-1830.
| Ten-year periods | Share of measles | Share of whooping-cough | ||
| 1731-40 | 0·70 | 0·41 | ||
| 1741-50 | 0·68 | 0·40 | ||
| 1751-60 | 1·15 | 1·03 | ||
| 1761-70 | 1·11 | 1·12 | ||
| 1771-80 | 0·93 | 1·66 | ||
| 1781-90 | 1·10 | 1·32 | ||
| 1791-1800 | 1·34 | 1·97 | ||
| 1801-10 | 3·11 | 3·14 | ||
| 1811-20 | 3·52 | 3·49 | ||
| 1821-30 | 3·17 | 3·13 |
During the same period, the ratio of deaths from all causes under two years of age had decreased, while the ratio of deaths from two to five, and at all ages above five, had increased as in the following table, also compiled from the London bills beginning with the year 1728 when the ages at death were first published.