Jerome L. Kohn

Measles in newborn infants (maternal infection)

Summary 1. Four cases of measles in young children infected by their mothers are reported. In two of the cases the mother was incubating measles at the time of the birth of the child. 2. In one other case, in which the mother was incubating measles at the time of birth, the child was evidently protected by convalescent serum. 3. Two children were born while the mother was in the eruptive stage of measles. Immediately after birth, one received convalescent serum and was allowed to remain with its mother, and the other received no serum, but was isolated. Both remained free of measles. 4. Congenital measles and measles in early infancy has been discussed. 5. Since the course of the measles in young infants is usually severe the use of measles immune serum soon after exposure is indicated.

Treatment of early measles with parental whole blood

Summary The etiological agent of measles is presumably a filtrable virus. The subsequent complications are presumably due to the presence of pathogenic bacteria. In an attempt to reduce the incidence of pulmonary complications and thus lower the mortality in children, sixtysix children under three years of age were injected subcutaneously with from 20 c.c. to 40 c.c. of adult blood during the pre-eruptive or early eruptive stages of measles. There was very little difference in the severity of the measles or in the incidence of pulmonary involvement, when these sixty-six children were compared with 758 children in the same age group who did not receive blood injections.

Treatment of measles with convalescent serum and concentrated adult normal serum

I T HAS been shown by Levinson and Connor ~ and the authors 2 that measles can be modified if sufficient quantities of convalescent serum are given in the pre-eruptive stage. It was %und that 40 to 50 c.c. given intravenously were necessary for such modification. Since our last communication, we have given convalescent serum to five more patients during the pre-eruptive stage. In four of these patients, definite modification of the measles was obtained. Guibert and Lapeyre ~ and Armstrong ~ have reported that the clinical course of measles was definitely improved when convalescent serum was given in the eruptive stage. This was noted especially in severely ill patients. We attempted to confirm this observation. Eight children were given 40 to ]05 e.c. of convalescent serum early in the eruptive stage. In only two of these eight patients were the measles considered to be mild. One of these children had received 40 e.c., and the other, 60 e.c. of serum. In the remaining six children the measles ran its usual course. In two there was a rise in temperature in the posteruptive stage, with evidence of pulmonary infiltration.