LA ROUGEOLE. ÉPIDÉMIOLOGIE, IMMUNOLOGIE PROPHYLAXIE.

Abstract

This timely book, published under the egis of the Institute of Hygiene of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, carries the solemn warning that measles constitutes one of the most important and most pressing problems of preventive medicine among diseases of children at this time. A comparison of the mortality curves of some of the common infectious diseases in European countries shows some striking facts. For example, smallpox was found to have been declining since the early sixties of the last century, and the decrease in the incidence of diphtheria was found to have set in twenty years or more before the contributions of Roux and Behring; since then, of course, it has been striking. Whooping cough has shown a tendency to decline in the last half century, and scarlet fever, as is commonly known, has steadily declined until recent years. Measles, on the other hand, has shown a remarkable