Symptoms and Description of Ordinary Type.—­The first symptoms may be only a headache or a slight disturbance of the stomach.  There may be some fever in the evening.  There is now a redness and watery condition of the eyes, and general feeling of weariness.  The cold symptoms (coryza) are not yet marked, but if we look in the mouth we may see a few spots on the mucous membrane of the cheek.  Then follow the sneezing, running at the nose, sore and red eyes; running water, sensitiveness to the light, cough and fever.  The eruption now appears, and is first noticed on the side of the head and the wings of the nose, as a red spotted eruption, which soon looks like a pimple, and then “blotchy.”  Older people feel quite sick.  The aching all over, and headache are sometimes almost unbearable, especially when there is much coughing.  The face, eyes and scalp are soon covered by the red rose irregularly shaped pimples, which next appear rapidly on the back of the hands, fore-arms, front of the trunk, on the back and lower extremities.  This order is not always maintained.  Sometimes it first appears on the back.

The eruptive stage generally lasts three or four days, during which time the symptoms are all aggravated, especially by any strong light, on account of the sore eyes for the measles are also in them.  We have active cold symptoms like sneezing, running at the nose, snorting, snuffling, hawking.  The cough is terribly severe, annoying, making the lungs and stomach very sore.  The head feels as if it would split.  The patient holds his chest and “stomach” while coughing.  Symptoms of acute bronchitis develop.  Sometimes there is much diarrhea.  Pneumonia often develops through carelessness.  The fever reaches its height when the eruption is fully developed.  The eruption fades after it has been out for three or four days, and then all the symptoms decrease, the fever lessens and becomes normal by gradual morning remissions.  Scaling begins when the pinkish hue of the rash has disappeared and continues until the last vestige of reddish spots has disappeared.  As a rule it is completed in two to four weeks after the first eruption has appeared.  Sometimes the scaling is difficult to see, but it is never absent in measles:  It is best seen on the front part of the chest, shoulders, and the inner surface of the thighs.  The temperature may reach 104 to 105-8/10 without complications.  This description gives a picture of a typical case.  The eruption that appears in the mucous membrane of the mouth appears three to four days before the skin rash.  It is accompanied by redness of the pharynx and of the front and back pillars of the fauces.  The soft palate is studded with irregular shaped, rose colored spots or streaks and the hard palate presents small whitish vesicles.  They are also found on the colored mucous membrane of the cheeks and on that opposite the gums of the upper and lower teeth.  The rash of measles is a characteristic eruption of rose colored or purple colored papules (pimples).  As a rule the whole face is covered with the eruption and is swollen.  Diphtheria may complicate measles.  Bronchitis and brancho-pneumonia also may occur, especially if the patient is careless and takes cold.  Diarrhea is frequently present.