Whooping Cough

an infectious disease characterized by spells of coughing and long drawn breaths producing a peculiar "whoop" from which the disease is named. It appears to have been prevalent among the children of Greece. It is due in all probability to a specific bacterium that breeds in the system. Whooping cough appears to be a disease of children whom it attacks at all ages, but chiefly between the cutting of the first and the second teeth. It ranks with scarlet fever and measles as one of the plagues of childhood. Doctors are able to make the disease easy, but seem to have no way of cutting it short. It seems determined to run from four to six weeks. Deaths from whooping cough are slightly in excess of deaths from measles and scarlet fever. There were 3,669 registered deaths from whooping cough in the United States in the year 1900. See Disease