Measles

(mez’-els) [Du., maselen, measles]. I. An acute, infectious disease, characterized by a peculiar eruption and by catarrhal inflammation of the mucosae of the conjunctiva and the air-pasages. After a period of incubation of nearly two weeks the disease begins with a chill, fever, coryza, cough, and conjunctivitis; on the third or fourth day a dusky-red, papular eruption appears, arranged in the form of crescentic groups. After having reached its maximum, in three or four days, the eruption gradually fades, and is followed by a branny desquamation. The disease affects principal^ the young, is exceedingly contagious, and one attack of it confers almost perpetual immunity. Its cause is thought to be a bacillus (Bacillus of Canon and Pielicke). 2. A disease of hogs, cattle, and sheep, due to the presence in the body of the Cysticercus cellulosae and larvae of other tapeworms. 3. The cysticerci themselves. M., Black., M., Hemorrhagic, a grave variety of measles (ist def.), in which the eruption is hemorrhagic and the constitutional symptoms profound. M., German. See Rotheln. 382