Word: rubella
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...party was the idea of Antonia's father, Dr. Charles Stevens, who firmly believes that the way to protect his daughters against the danger of having stillborn or malformed children as a result of German measles (rubella) infection early in pregnancy (TIME, Dec. 31) is to make sure they catch the disease long before they are married. So far the virus has not been grown well enough to prepare a vaccine, so the only way a girl can get a case -and lifelong immunity-is from direct exposure to another victim. If Antonia catches it, incubation will take...
...children and adults who catch it, German measles (rubella) is almost invariably a trivial infection with slight fever, sore throat and fast-disappearing rash. But contracted by a woman during pregnancy, especially in the first three months, rubella is often hideously deforming or fatal to her unborn child...
...were born a few months after their mothers had German measles. The question remained just how frequently the disease causes such damage. Now Harvard University's Dr. Theodore H. Ingalls has an answer, based on detailed checkups of what happened to the fetus in 147 Massachusetts cases of rubella in the first three months of pregnancy. The statistical result: almost 15% stillbirths, an equal number with severe deformity or crippling...
...envisage the use of a standard packet of antigens . . . for the great bulk of the consumers. This would [represent] the various strains of the Group A streptococci, and the staphylococci, pneumococci, tubercle bacilli, typhoid, paratyphoid and diphtheria organisms, and eventually the virus antigens of poliomyelitis, rubella, measles and other diseases. Other packets of disease antigens for special regions, seasons or fractions of the population might be demanded...
...most states, abortion is justified only to save the life of the mother and, because rubella cannot always be clearly diagnosed, the practice might easily be abused. But few progressive doctors would deny the need for grave measures. Australian statistics had shown that if a mother contracted the disease within the first six weeks of pregnancy, the chance of the fetus being deformed was almost 100%; if in the second six weeks, about 50%. Dr. Bass, while stressing that Australian statistics could not be applied to the rest of the world, reported that in seven cases he had observed recently...