Where do Mumps come from & why?
 

In Thursday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 1,521 mumps cases, using data collected before end of January. But CNN has learned that the number is now at least 1,996

I had all the childhood diseases when I was a kid. Mumps, Measles (a couple of varities), Chicken Pox, and almost everything else that came down the line. Mumps can be had twice or once they attack the glands in the neck. If you got mumps on one side you could get it on the other side a few weeks later. I was lucky I got hit with both sides at one time.

Keith

Remember the term the mumps "fell" on someone? That was when it went to the testicles. Bad stuff. One thing all those childhood diseases have in common is they can and do kill kids. I remeber when people had "chicken pox parties" where parents would expose their kids to an infected kid so they would get it at a convenient time. We had a kid come in the hospital and die after contacting chicken pox this way and it going on to meningitis. We used to have about a case a year of chicken pox meningitis. I have seen about a case of tetanus a year and a few cases of polio on people that hadn't had their shots. The polio was in babies that hadn't had the vaccine yet. The tetanus was always farmers that worked around barn yards with cow manure. We also saw whooping cough in unvaccinated infants.

I remember when a cousin got the mumps and the doctor gave him a shot of penicillin...only to find out the hard way that he's allergic to penicillin. After a very quick trip to the ER and an emergency tracheotomy later, my cousin now has to wear one of those medallions that notify emergency personnel about the allergy.

What was bad as mumps is a virus and pennicillin has no effect on it. I am sure the shot was just the physician mollifying the patient or his parents. When people want a shot of pennicillin for a cold I tell them just drink a Pepsi. It works just as well as pennicilin (not at all) and at least it doesn't cause anaphylacitic shock.

I also had whooping cough. I still remember the whooping for hours and hours. I knew of one kid that the mumps dropped on, boy was he sick. Whooping cough has made quite a come back in the State of Washington this last year. Several in our city had it (whooping cough) this winter. We had one kid in my class who came down with polio before the vaccination came out. My folks were so relieved that the polio vaccination came into being. I raised in a very small rural community in isolated Eastern Oregon. We only had 7 or 8 kids per grade in our four room school house. Always amazed that these diseases could even find our place. :)