The Prevention of Measles

denouncing and ridiculing them. And when, a few years later, some experiments were made in America by observers who brought out results which, as they imagined, disproved Dr. Salisbury's results, it is not surprising, perhaps, that the schools took these observers at their word without hesitation. The "straw mildew theory" was voted by common consent to have been exploded, and was rarely mentioned except historically or by way of jest. Of late years it has been lost sight of; and, in effect, the question of the relation of the "straw fungi" to measles has dropped out of practical etiology.

The argument here is that the conception of Dr. Salisbury was sound; that his experiments and inoculations were faithfully made and correctly described; that of the after experiments and inoculations by the subsequent observers, if they had any value at all, some were of negative value and the others were confirmatory of those by Dr. Salisbury; and, further, that the view of the causation of measles by the "straw fungi," apart from all experimental observations, is borne out by the phenomena connected with the occurrence of the disease, and, indeed, furnishes a full explanation of these phenomena. What is of the highest importance, too, the view points unerringly to a means of suppressing measles-not, however, by the method proposed by Dr. Salisbury, but by a more simple and less inconvenient method suggested by the place and by the mode in which infection with the "straw fungi" occurs.

For if it can be shown that the "straw fungi" are the specific causes of the disease, inoculations with these fungi for protective purposes, however successful it may have proved in Dr. Salisbury's hands, is superfluous: for in place of causing a mild form of traumatic measles in

order to ward off or mitigate an impending attack of ordinary measles, the way is open to the complete and life-long exemption of all persons from this disease at will. As the straw in the paillasse obviously furnishes the soil on which the fungi germinate and flourish, under certain seasonal conditions, so as to contaminate with their spores the air inhaled during the hours of sleep, it follows that all that has to be done to prevent measles is to get rid of the straw in the paillasse.

In these few words are compressed the main issues submitted for determination; but many issues of no less magnitude depend upon their confirmation. The ques tions raised are no doubt old, but not threadbare: indeed I strongly suspect they will be found to be virtually new to the present generation of etiologists. In reopening them my work has been to present some aspects of known facts that have not yet been examined, to draw attention to a few unknown facts, and to show how they bear on the etiology of measles and, consequently, on the prevention of the disease. I trust that a case has been made out for inquiry.

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