Rubella: Historical Aspects

THE tangible history of rubella encompasses a period of about 150 years. Its early status of bastard measles and scarlet fever became increasingly legitimate for about a century, but, among the spectacular contagions of the time, rubella was disparaged until 1941 when it received the imprimatur of greatness. Not only did it achieve a place in the hierachy as an infectious disease with exceedingly subtle severe effects but also respect by exemplifying a new concept of infectious processes. From early in the 18th century German descriptions of a new entity called Rötheln were viewed with slowly diminishing skepticism. The names of de Bergen,¹Jahn,²Maton,³Wagner,⁴and Homans⁵are prominently associated with the early descriptions of the disease. The growing acceptance of Rötheln or German measles as an epidemic entity is reflected in a paper in the<i>Edinburgh Medical Journal</i>in 1866 by Veale,⁶