On Apr 8, 1:05*pm, Jerry > wrote:
> Measles? Mumps? *People died of those things? *When I was a kid, I got
> lots of diseases: measles, mumps, chicken pox, colds, the flu, scurvy
> at the age of 3, and other diseases that I don't remember.

There were no drugs for measles and mumps. Most people survived, but a
significant proportion of folks were damaged or killed. God bless
vaccines.

Measles - they kept you in a dark room because the light was painful.
You might end up blind or deaf, or brain damaged.

Mumps - could make you sterile.

Rheumatic fever - was considered to be contagious, but was actually
the autoimmune aftereffect of a Strep Group A infection. It attacked
heart valves, kidneys, vascular system, etc, doing every sort of
damage, depending mainly on what strain of strep had got you down. The
period of contagion began and ended long before the rheumatic fever
period, which could go on for days or weeks before resolving itself as
permanent loss of kidney function (no transplants then) and heart
failure (before routine valve jobs).

Nowadays, the evil medical industry does a quick outpatient saliva
check for streptococcus and gives you a prescription for a $5
penicillin drug and sends you home, and you may wonder what all the
excitement is about.

DB