Measles: discovery by al-Rhazes

Measles virus is believed to have become established in human populations about 5000-10,000 years ago when human populations achieved sufficient size in Middle Eastern river valley civilizations’ to maintain virus transmission.

Doctors have known about measles for centuries. It was first describe by the 10th century Persian physician al-Rhazes, who called the illness by its Arabic name, hasba (meaning ‘eruption’). He produced over 200 books, half of them on medicine, including a 10-voume treatise in Greek medicine.

However, it was in his book Al-Judari wa al-Hasbah, which was the earliest medical text to distinguish between smallpox and measles.

He also proposes the theory of acquired immunity by recognizing that individual surviving small pox never get it again.

He dated the first description of measles of the 6th century. However, epidemics identified as measles were not recoded until the 11th and 12 the centuries. And measles was first mentioned as a childhood disease in 1224.

Its present name did not appear until the 14th century, where it was derived from the Arabic word miser, used to describe the unhappiness of lepers.

It spread quickly across North Africa into Europe, where it was introduced by explorers to the New World with tragic results.
Measles: discovery by al-Rhazes

History of measles

Measles probably began with the start of urban life in the Middle East around 3000 BC.

Some historians believe that a plague that killed a large part of the Athenian army in 430 to 429 BC was measles. As urbanization occurred in subsequent centuries, the proximity or larger populations nurtured epidemics with continued circulation of virus in cities. There were massive epidemics in the Roman Empire starting in 165 and in 251 AD, and two similar epidemics in China in 162 and 310.

Jews physician such as Al Yehudi had recognized the illness but without distinction between it and other rash disordered.

Measles was first documented by an Arabic physician called Rhazes.

Rhazes lived in the 10th century but he quoted other authors on measles form as far back s Al Yehudi, who lived in the 7th century.

He distinguished between smallpox and measles even though he believed that the two conditions were part of one morbid process.

Rhazes referred it the disease as widespread throughout the East and the same opinion is expressed by Avicenna and other Arabic writers of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

By the 17th century, some European also physicians had identified the differences between measles and small pox.

In 1846, a Danish physician Peter Panum studied a measles outbreak on the Faroe Islands and was the first to describe the clinical presentation, incubation and infectious nature of measles.

The introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and its subsequent widespread use led to dramatic declines in the reported incidence of measles.
History of measles 

Measles – History of discovery

Measles – History of discovery

Measles is a relatively new disease of humans and probably evolved from an animal morbilivirus.

Measles or rubeola is a highly communicable viral disease that is characterized by a reddish brown rash that lasts for five to six days. Although a rare side effect, post-infection encephalitis can lead to permanent brain damage. Almost every susceptible child exposed to another child in the early stages of measles will contract the disease.

The first scientific description of measles and its distinction from smallpox and chickenpox is credited to the Persian physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (860-932), known to the West as "Rhazes", who published a book entitled The Book of Smallpox and Measles (in Arabic: Kitab fi al-jadari wa-al-hasbah).

Rhazes referred to measles as ‘hasbah’ (eruption) and regarded it as a modification of smallpox. One distinction noted was that ‘anxiety of mind, sick qualms and heaviness of heart oppress more in the measles than in the smallpox. Repeated epidemics of illness characterized by a rash are recorded in European and Far Eastern populations between AD 1 and 1200.

In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide. In 1954, the virus causing the disease was isolated from an 11-year old boy from the United States, and adapted and propagated on chick embryo tissue culture. To date, 21 strains of the measles virus have been identified. Licensed vaccines to prevent the disease became available in 1963.

Many of the basic principles of measles epidemiology and infection were elucidated by the studies of Peter Panum, a Danish physician who went to the France Islands in 1846 during a large scale measles epidemic. Panum deduced the highly contagious nature of the disease the 14-day incubation period, the lifelong immunity present in older residents, and postulated a respiratory route of transmission.
Measles – History of discovery