Word: rubella
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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German Measles (rubella). Work goes on in several labs, including Enders', to get this unclassified virus to grow in tissue cultures. Since the illness in children is so mild, the raw virus could probably be used to infect girls before puberty; the danger is that if they escape childhood infection, exposure during the first three months of pregnancy may cause crippling or fatal damage to the fetus...
...dozen conferees paid tribute to Sir Norman McAlister Gregg, 68, the Sydney ophthalmic surgeon who saw a local epidemic of cataracts in the newborn in 1941. By detective work he found that in all but ten of 78 cases the mothers had had German measles (rubella) in the first four months of pregnancy. Around the world, Gregg's findings were soon confirmed. Thus a common infection, almost invariably mild in children but which may be severe in adults, was convicted as a crippler and killer of the unborn...
Apparently the rubella virus inflicts its severest damage on whichever tissues happen to be developing fastest when the infection strikes. Toronto's Dr. Andrew J. Rhodes gave this timetable: rubella causes cataracts in the sixth week, deafness by infection in the ninth, heart defects fifth to tenth weeks, dental deformities sixth to ninth weeks...