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Yeh, the rite of passage just meant that you'd been there, just like everyone else in those days and now it was over with and you were free.
BTW, I used to think most kids got measles in their first years of school. It would go around the classroom and everyone you knew had the measles at about the same time. (I got it when I was 7.)
But I was looking through an old scrapbook and my cousin's mom had written that my cousin got the measles when she was two! AND that she got a vaccination for it afterwards. This would have been 1946. I just thought that was kind of strange. Getting it at age two and--a vaccination of some sort?
I had measles in 1949 at 6 months old. No older siblings or cousins. We lived in NYC and Mom took me everywhere; on buses, subways, parks, shopping, etc. where there were large numbers of people (and children) all around. Totally impossible to know how I caught it. Parents did not cocoon their infants then. Even today you will see babies on NYC subways.
My Grandma and Great-Grandma lived with us. Between them they had raised a lot of children who had measles. They knew what to expect and what not to. I highly doubt measles was reported back in those days. Children just rode out the disease at home. I had chicken pox at 7 months, and rubella and mumps by age 2. Mom used to brag that because I was so young, that I would not miss school with any of these diseases. Very true.
When I was school age, I used to visit my friends in their apartments when they were getting these diseases. I never saw a quarantine sign. Where would it be put up? At their apartment door or the front building? Was the school required to report every case of measles? I do remember the teacher saying that Mary or Johnny was out sick with measles but that was it.
Very strange that your cousin had measles but was still given that vaccination. They certainly weren't giving we teenagers that vaccination for something that 99.9% of us already had by that age, and couldn't catch again.
Re my cousin's vaccination when she was 2 years old and had gotten measles, I bet my aunt meant the smallpox vaccination. She wrote that it was because she'd had measles at only age two, maybe implying that the dr thought her immune system might be weak. In those days I think the word vaccination usually referred to smallpox, a truly dreaded disease. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Nio one was quarantined for measles. It was, as you say, something to get so you wouldn't have to miss school when you were older. Lucky you to have the common illnesses all in your past by the time you went to school.
My brother and sister and I had all the childhood illnesses, plus I also had Scarlet Fever.
Mom would usually call the doctor, but we never went to the doctor's office for any of these. Standard treatment at home was laying on the couch covered in blankets, trying to sleep as much as possible, lots of liquids, whatever food you could eat. If we got fevers, we didn't take anything to stop them, we'd stay wrapped in blankets until the fever broke and then you'd feel so much better. For rashes we used the pink calamine lotion to calm the itch.
Back then, we called it 3 day measles and German measles and all 3 of us had both types.
Here's how to stay healthy once you have the measles. Take an effective antiviral medication that prevents you from getting viral encephalitis or viral pneumonia. Take an immune memory restorer that prevents measles from erasing your immune system"s ability to recognize prior infections. In fact, probably a good idea for the entire family to take these every day to support healthy immune function. Moderator cut: against the rules
Last edited by in_newengland; 11-30-2019 at 12:24 PM..
I was born in 1953 and got the 10 day measles when I was 7. {Had the 3 day measles when I was a baby.}
I wasn't very sick but was not allowed to go to school. In fact, I wanted to go outside to play so my mom called the doctor who said it was OK as long as I wore sunglasses. I remember Mom telling me I would go blind if I took the glasses off and not to let the school bus driver see me outside playing. LOL
I lived in a house where both of my parents smoked, played outside a lot and ate healthy meals {milk, meat, vegetables and fruit}.
Had my tonsils taken out, the measles, mumps and chickenpox all in the 2cd grade, missing about a month of school altogether. Recovered well from all of them and life went on.
Ditto for my brother except he didn't miss any days of school because he was 2 years younger than me and he caught everything from me when I had it. { I believe he was also around 7 years old when he had his tonsils out.}
I'd like to hear from people who had this normal childhood illness preferably pre-1963 and got through it just fine.
Here is what my response was going to be:
Well, it wasn't pre-1963, but it was 1973...probably did the same things then.
I was kept in a room with very low light...loved that I got to eat my dinners in the room...read a lot.
It was NOT a terrible experience at all...nice not going to school
Back then parents and children were't afraid of this common childhood illness....many were purposefully exposed to get it over with.
I don't remember anyone suffering terribly with it, nor experiencing any repercussions...other than now having a life-long immunity to it.
Yeh, the rite of passage just meant that you'd been there, just like everyone else in those days and now it was over with and you were free.
BTW, I used to think most kids got measles in their first years of school. It would go around the classroom and everyone you knew had the measles at about the same time. (I got it when I was 7.)
But I was looking through an old scrapbook and my cousin's mom had written that my cousin got the measles when she was two! AND that she got a vaccination for it afterwards. This would have been 1946. I just thought that was kind of strange. Getting it at age two and--a vaccination of some sort?
My brother was barely a year old when he got rubeola, in 1959. He was VERY sick, with a very high fever, and has suffered life-long complications. There was no vaccine then, but some parents did avail themselves of an immuno-globulin shot of some kind, which apparently eased the symptoms and decreased the impact. (I'm fuzzy on the details).
Kids with older brothers and sisters or who play with kids who have older brothers and sister are exposed sooner than those without. I was 5 when I got rubeola in 1952, my younger sisters who got it from me were 3 and 2 years old. I don't think immuno-globulin was an option then, we sure didn't get any shots.
BTW, I was absolutely miserable with it. Definitely worse than rubella and chicken pox, which I also had.
My brother was barely a year old when he got rubeola, in 1959. He was VERY sick. There was no vaccine then, but some parents did avail themselves of an immuno-globulin shot of some kind, which apparently eased the symptoms. (I'm fuzzy on the details).
Kids with older brothers and sisters or who play with kids who have older brothers and sister are exposed sooner than those without. I was 5 when I got rubeola in 1952, my younger sisters who got it from me were 3 and 2 years old.
BTW, I was miserable with it. Definitely worse than rubella and chicken pox, which I also had.
I'm a bit fuzzy on the details for IG as well. I understand that some docs gave kids a dose of IG to as you said ease the symptoms. Some also gave it to people who'd been exposed to try to prevent measles. Although it was pretty much inevitable to get it pre-vaccine, no one wanted their kids to get it now.
Also according to the CDC's "Vital Statistics of the United States 1962," the death rate from measles per 100,000 people varied between 0.2~0.3 between 1953 and 1962 (so likely slightly higher for children).
(According to this site, there were between 52 and 67 million children between 1953 and 1962:
Diseases of the nervous system and sense organs:
4531
Gastroenteritis and colitis:
2892
Leukemia:
2,300
Diseases of the circular system:
1420
Meningitis:
1,400
Heart Disease:
1208
Homicide:
1,115
So you're saying it's better to die of measles? And this is a bit ironic! Lots of people like to say that measles disease prevents cancer. Yet cancer, including leukemia, caused 14,072 deaths! There are more effective treatments and/or vaccines for all these things in the present day as well. (Well, except homicides.) Shouldn't we try to prevent what we can?
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 11-30-2019 at 10:41 AM..
So you're saying it's better to die of measles? And this is a bit ironic! Lots of people like to say that measles disease prevents cancer. Yet cancer, including leukemia, caused 14,072 deaths! There are more effective treatments and/or vaccines for all these things in the present day as well. (Well, except homicides.)
I think what the poster was saying is look at the facts. Instead of *acting* like measles killed 90% of the population every year. Which some posters do with repetitious fear mongering.
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