We came upon a letter mailed from Brainbridge, Maryland, to New Bern, North Carolina, over one hundred years ago. The date on the envelope is hazy, but . And . The letter was written by “Louie” to his mother and father. It seems Louie was not feeling well.
The letter (edited for clarity) reads:
"Dear Mother & Dad,
I received your loving letters and was very glad to hear from you although they found me in the hospital with measles and several other things. So therefore I won't be able to come home when my time comes but I hope and trust God that I will be able to come home soon. Mother, I have been real sick for the last weeks, and I’m not allowed to eat anything yet. Well, mom, my head is beginning to hurt, so I will close.
Your son,
Louie
Ps Tell Pearl I will write when I get better."
is a disease caused by the measles virus, and . According to CDC, “ include diarrhea, otitis media, pneumonia, encephalitis, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, and death. Complications of measles were most common among children age younger than 5 years and adults.” As you can see, Louie was probably suffering from one or more of these complications, given how he is hospitalized.
Public health surveillance was not what it is now back in the 1800s, but some government agencies did keep counts of cases of diseases of interest. . One such .
The first live, attenuated vaccine was introduced in the United States in 1963, and the combined Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine that we still use today was introduced in 1971. Rates of all three diseases plummeted after the introduction of the vaccine, and a second dose recommendation sealed the deal for the countries using the MMR vaccine. By 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States. Even with outbreaks of measles from time to time (and ), measles has been kept at bay because of the vaccine.
Without having the full medical records on the letter’s author, it is difficult to know if his diagnosis was really measles. However, the author does mention having received medical care, so someone with some training diagnosed him. A well-trained physician in a hospital would surely recognize measles. After all, .
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