Ears and Hearing

You have an ear on each side of your head. Your ears let you hear sounds. You can hear music and other nice sounds. You can hear sirens and other warning sounds.

Your ears do something else very important. They help you keep your balance. You can walk and ride a bike without falling over because of your ears.

HOW DOES SOUND WORK?

Anything that moves back and forth makes sound. Moving back and forth is called vibrating. Pluck a guitar string and watch it vibrate back and forth. The vibrations make sound waves.

Sound waves are a lot like water waves. If you throw a pebble in a lake or pond, you can see the waves move out in circles. Sound waves move out in circles from whatever is vibrating.

Most sound waves you hear travel through air. Sound waves can also travel through water and even through solid things. You can hear your own voice because your solid skull bones vibrate.

Your ears pick up the sound waves. Your ear has three main parts that let you hear. The parts are called the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear.

THE OUTER EAR

Your outer ear is the part that sticks out on the side of your head. The outer ear collects sound waves. The sound waves travel down a tube to your eardrum. Your eardrum is a thin layer that separates the outer ear from the middle ear. The sound waves make your eardrum vibrate.

THE MIDDLE EAR

Your middle ear is inside your head on the other side of your eardrum. Your middle ear has three tiny bones. Your vibrating eardrum makes the bones move. The bones carry the vibrations to your inner ear.

Your middle ear is filled with air. A tube connects your middle ear with your nose and throat. This tube helps keep too much air from building up inside your ear. The tube makes your ears pop in an elevator or airplane.

THE INNER EAR

Your inner ear has many parts and tubes that twist and turn. A part called the cochlea is very important for hearing. The cochlea looks like a snail shell. It is filled with fluid and tiny hairs. The moving bones in your middle ear make the fluid and tiny hairs in the cochlea move.

The tiny hairs link to nerves. The nerves carry signals to your brain. Your brain tells you what the sound is. It tells whether you are hearing a train whistle or a bird singing.

HOW DO EARS HELP WITH BALANCE?

Your sense of balance comes partly from your inner ear. Fluid, tiny hairs, and small grains of minerals in your inner ear work together to tell your brain where your head is. They tell your brain if your head is straight up-and-down or sideways. This helps your brain tell your muscles how to move to keep your balance.

Problems with the inner ear can cause dizziness. Motion sickness, such as seasickness or carsickness, comes from your inner ear. When big waves shake you up, the liquid inside your inner ear sloshes around. That can make you feel sick.

WHAT CAUSES HEARING PROBLEMS?

Sometimes people are born with hearing problems. Injuries and infections can also cause hearing problems. People with hearing problems hear less well than others. People with very serious problems cannot hear any sounds. They are totally deaf (unable to hear).

Hearing problems can come from injured eardrums. Infections or other diseases can damage parts of the ear. Cancer can damage nerves. Children can be born with a missing or damaged cochlea or other ear parts. Some people slowly lose their hearing as they get older. Loud music and other loud noises can also cause hearing loss.

Doctors treat ear infections with medicines or use tubes to drain the ear. Ear doctors can give some people hearing aids, small machines that make sounds louder. They can give people with very serious hearing loss a cochlear implant. The implant is a tiny artificial cochlea that changes sound waves to signals. The signals are fed to the nerves that lead to the brain.

HICCUPS

How do you get rid of hiccups? Do you hold your breath? Do you breathe into a paper bag? Maybe you have someone scare you? Or do you just wait until they go away?

Everyone has a favorite cure for hiccups. But why we get them is a mystery to science. They seem to serve no purpose.

WHAT ARE HICCUPS?

Hiccups start from the diaphragm (pronounced DY-uh-fram). This is a wide muscle below your lungs. It’s a very important muscle because it helps you breathe. It pulls down to help draw air into your lungs. It relaxes and moves up to help you breathe out.

Normally, this happens smoothly. But sometimes, the diaphragm pulls down with sudden jerk, called a spasm. This causes you to breathe in quickly. When this happens, the opening into your windpipe shuts. The flow of air is cut off. That’s what makes the hic sound.

FACTS ABOUT HICCUPS

Usually, people have several hiccups in a row. After a few minutes, they usually stop. All mammals (animals that raise their young on milk) get hiccups. Newborn human babies have them. In fact, even unborn babies can get hiccups! Women and men get hiccups equally as often. But pregnant women rarely get hiccups.

ARE HICCUPS DANGEROUS?

Almost all hiccups last a short time and are harmless. But in those rare cases when they last for several days or more, they interfere with sleeping and eating. If hiccups last more than a month, they must be treated with drugs or surgery. The longest recorded attack of hiccups is 60 years!

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

Nose and Smell

Here’s a question: If you lost your nose, would you still be able to smell? Believe it or not, the answer is yes! Even though the nose is the organ of smell, it’s only the outside part. There’s an inside part that you can’t see. That’s where the smelling gets done.

THE NOSE

There are all kinds of noses in the animal world: big or small, flat or round, and long or short. In people, what we call the nose is the formation of bone, cartilage (tough tissue), and skin on the front of the face. The nose has two openings called nostrils. They allow air to come in and go out. When that happens, the nose collects the molecules of substances that cause odors.

The nose has other functions, too. The stiff hairs in the nostrils help keep out dust, dirt, and insects that you might take in when you breathe. Once inside the nose, the air you breathe is warmed and moistened in the big nasal cavity before going to the lungs. The nasal cavity is the big space behind your nostrils. It’s what gets stuffed up and swollen when you have a cold.

The size, shape, and health of your nose help determine the way your voice sounds. Pinch your nose shut and talk. Can you hear the difference?

SMELL

Smell is the detection of odors. It’s one of the five senses. The others are touch, taste, sight, and hearing.

Smelling takes place deep inside the nasal cavity. That’s because there are nerve endings called olfactory nerves located there. You actually smell stuff somewhere roughly between your eyes!

When a molecule that represents an odor hits the olfactory nerves, these nerve endings send a signal to your brain. The brain then determines what the smell is, and you recognize it. Most people can detect about 10,000 different odors! Unfortunately, one of them is dirty socks.

Smell plays a big part in the sense of taste, too. The taste buds can only detect four tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Your sense of smell adds to these tastes. That’s why food is so rich and varied in taste. That’s also why if your nose is blocked up, your taste buds don’t work well either.

ANIMAL NOSES

For most animals, the nose and sense of smell are crucial to survival. They help animals find food. They can help animals tell friends from enemies and find mates.

Many animals have noses with extra talents. The elephant’s trunk is long like an arm and useful like a hand. It’s a trumpet when an elephant calls, and it’s a hose that allows an elephant to drink or give itself a shower.

Horses and camels can open and close their nostrils the way you can open and close your eyes. It helps them keep dirt or sand out when the wind is blowing.

A young salmon will travel thousands of miles downriver and into the ocean to live. Years later, it can use its sense of smell to return to the exact place it was born. Its ability to smell is that good! Can you imagine finding your way home from school only using your nose?

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

SKIN

Your skin is your body’s largest organ, larger than your heart or lungs or brain. Skin covers your whole body, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. You could not live without your skin. Skin keeps germs and other harmful things out of your body. It keeps water, blood, and other fluids that you need inside your body.

You are always losing your skin and growing new skin. The outside layer of your skin is dead. It flakes off all the time. New skin grows to replace it.

LAYERS OF SKIN

Your skin has an outside layer called the epidermis. Under that is a layer called the dermis. Under those two layers is a layer of fat.

The epidermis protects the layers beneath it from minor scrapes, jabs, and sunburn. The bottom of your epidermis is always making new skin cells. The dead cells on the top of your skin are constantly dropping off.

The dermis is full of nerves and blood vessels. The nerves send signals to your brain when you touch something. The dermis gives your skin its toughness and strength. It also helps keep your body cool in hot weather and warm in cold weather. A scrape only bleeds if it’s deep enough to go through the epidermis and into the dermis.

There is a layer of fat under the dermis. This layer is thicker than both top layers of skin.

WHAT GIVES SKIN ITS COLOR?

The top layer of skin has a chemical called melanin. Melanin gives your skin its color. The more melanin you have, the darker your skin is. Patches of skin with extra melanin make freckles.

Melanin protects your skin from the Sun’s harmful rays. Your skin makes more melanin when you are out in the Sun. More melanin gives you a tan.

Melanin has its limits. Too much sunlight is bad for your skin. Harmful rays from the Sun can burn your skin. They can cause skin cancer.

WHAT IS HAIR MADE OF?

Hair is made of skin cells. A hair grows from a root under the skin. The hair grows up inside a shaft through the layers of skin. The part of the hair that you see is made of dead cells.

The color of hair, like the color of skin, comes from melanin. Melanin is made in the hair root. The hair of older people turns gray because the root stops making melanin.

The shape of the hair shaft gives you straight or curly hair. A round shaft makes straight hair. An oval-shaped shaft makes wavy hair. A comma-shaped shaft makes curly hair.

WHAT ARE FINGERNAILS MADE OF?

Fingernails and toenails are also made of skin cells. These nail cells are very hard. Nail cells start growing inside your fingers and toes. The cells die. New cells push the dead cells outward. This makes nails on your fingers and toes grow.

WHAT CAUSES PIMPLES?

Plugged pores cause pimples (zits). Pores are openings in the skin. Dead skin cells can plug up a pore. The plug can make a blackhead or a whitehead on top of the skin.

Pores allow oil to get to the surface of your skin. This oil is the kind that gives you oily skin, not the kind that gets made into gasoline. The oil keeps your skin and hair from drying out. Groups of cells called glands make the oil. Oil glands are almost everywhere in your body. There are many oil glands on your face and scalp.

The oil cannot get out of a plugged pore. Soon a pimple or a red lump forms. The red lumps can leave scars. Squeezing a pimple can cause a scar.

Doctors can help teenagers with lots of pimples. Doctors can give them medicine that will help make the pimples go away.

WHAT MAKES A SCAB?

Have you ever scraped your knee or cut your finger? Scabs grow over scrapes, cuts, and other wounds that bleed. The blood dries and hardens. The blood turns into a scab.

New cells grow under the scab. The cells join up and cover the cut. When the skin is healed, the scab drops off

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

TEETH

They can bite, chomp, chew, crush, nibble, and gnaw. They can be cleaned, crowned, drilled, filled, pulled, capped, and straightened. You can crack them, break them, brush them, and floss them. You can even replace them if you lose them. What are they?

They’re your teeth.

WHAT TEETH ARE

Teeth are the hardest parts of the human body. They often survive long after the bones, or skeleton, have decayed. Scientists have discovered ancient teeth from animals and humans. These remains help scientists learn about the past. For example, they can tell whether a dinosaur ate other animals or plants from the kind of teeth it had.

Teeth are hard because they are made mainly of dentin and covered in a thin layer of enamel. Dentin is like bone only harder. Enamel is the hardest material in the body. Within this hard structure is a soft pulp full of blood vessels and nerves. If you have a toothache, it’s probably because something is irritating a nerve in the pulp.

Yet hard as they are, teeth can decay. Have you ever had a cavity? A cavity is a hole in a tooth. It develops when tiny bacteria eat away at the enamel and dentin. Luckily, a dentist can fill the holes that bacteria make.

Once a tooth decays, it can more easily crack and break. That’s why it’s so important to keep teeth clean. Brushing your teeth helps get rid of bacteria and the bits of food that bacteria feed on.

WHAT TEETH DO

Teeth do lots of things. They help you eat by tearing, grinding, and chewing food. It’s step one in the process of digestion.

Teeth also help you talk. Say the word thistle. Did you feel your tongue touch your upper front teeth? You should have felt it twice, on the th and on the l. You need your teeth to create certain sounds in speech.

Teeth help determine how you look. They support muscles in your face. If you didn’t have teeth, your lips would collapse inward.

KINDS OF TEETH

Teeth are specialists. That’s why your teeth don’t all look alike. If your adult teeth have grown in, you’ve got four different kinds of teeth.

Your front teeth, or incisors, are flat and sharp. You use these teeth like knives to cut into food. Next to the front teeth are your canines (your fangs!). You use these sharp, pointy teeth for tearing and shredding food. Beyond the canines are the bicuspids and the back teeth, or molars. You use these flatter teeth to chomp and grind.

ANIMAL TEETH

Animals have even more specialized teeth. They use their teeth for more than just eating.

Beavers use their front teeth to gnaw down whole trees. A beaver’s front teeth keep on growing. They would lengthen by about 4 feet (1.2 meters) every year if the beaver didn’t chisel them down by gnawing.

Walruses use their huge canines as hooks when they climb up onto ice. Elephant tusks are the largest teeth in the world. Elephants use them for digging or as weapons.

Piranhas are fish that have scissor-like teeth. They use these teeth to cut flesh off prey. Sharks have rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. If they lose a tooth, a new one grows quickly in its place. The narwhal is a whale that has only two teeth. In male narwhals, one tooth grows forward like a long, twisted sword. Scientists are unsure about the purpose of these teeth, but they have seen narwhals dueling with them.

Some poisonous snakes have fangs for teeth. They use their fangs like needles for injections. These snakes bite and deliver deadly poison through their fangs!

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

Disease

“Is it catching?” People sometimes ask this question when they hear that someone is sick. They are talking about a kind of human disease. The kinds of diseases that are contagious (catching) are caused by microscopic germs. Diseases caused by germs are called infectious diseases. Other human diseases can be caused by many things.

WHAT DISEASES DO GERMS CAUSE?

Pneumonia, strep throat, and food poisoning are some of the diseases caused by germs called bacteria. Bacteria are living things made of just one cell.

Germs called viruses cause colds, chicken pox, flu, mumps, measles, polio, and AIDS. Viruses are even tinier than bacteria.

A germ called a fungus causes athlete’s foot. Malaria is caused by a germ called a protozoan. Protozoans are made of one cell and are like tiny animals. Mad cow disease may be caused by a strange bit of protein called a prion.

HOW DO GERMS SPREAD?

Many germs spread in coughs and sneezes. Sick people get these germs on their hands. You can pick up these germs by touching a doorknob or something else that a sick person touched. Washing your hands regularly can help keep you safe from many diseases caused by germs.

Long ago, many people in Europe and North America died from diseases called cholera and typhoid. The germs that cause these diseases live in dirty water. Good sewers and clean water stopped the spread of these diseases in many countries. These diseases are still a problem in poor countries.

WHAT ELSE CAUSES DISEASE?

Contact with poisons can cause disease. Smoking tobacco can cause lung cancer and other lung diseases. Drinking lots of alcohol can damage the brain and liver. Lead in drinking water or paint can cause mental problems in children.

Clogged blood vessels cause heart disease. Many older people get diseases caused by body parts wearing out. Arthritis, Parkinson disease, and Alzheimer’s disease are diseases that most often occur as people age.

Sometimes, babies are born with diseases or birth defects. Sometimes babies can inherit (get from their parents) a disease that occurs later in life. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and muscular dystrophy are diseases that people can inherit.

Some diseases are caused by the body’s disease-fighting system. This system is called the immune system. Allergies come from the immune system fighting too much. Touching poison ivy can cause an itchy rash. The rash is a sign of an allergy.

Asthma is a breathing problem caused by the immune system. People can die from a bad asthma attack.

Not eating the right foods can cause disease. Not having enough vitamins can cause some diseases. A lack of vitamin C causes scurvy. Scurvy makes the skin bleed and teeth fall out. Hundreds of years ago, sailors on long voyages often died of scurvy.

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF DISEASE?

Chills and fever are often signs of diseases that are caused by germs. Pain can be a sign of disease. A diseased appendix or other organ causes pain. Itchy eyes and a runny nose can be a sign of hay fever or other allergy. Trouble breathing can be a sign of asthma.

Some diseases have no signs that you can see or feel. You cannot see or feel high blood pressure. Some diseases can only be found during a physical exam by a doctor. It is important to have regular checkups.

HOW DO DOCTORS TREAT DISEASES?

Doctors treat many kinds of diseases with medicines. Doctors can kill most disease-causing bacteria with drugs called antibiotics. Doctors give drugs to lower high blood pressure.

Doctors cannot really cure diseases caused by viruses. Your body can fight off colds and flu. The body cannot fight off AIDS, polio, and some other diseases caused by viruses. Doctors have drugs that can slow the AIDS virus. Doctors can vaccinate you against some diseases caused by viruses. Vaccinations help your body fight off disease. There are vaccines against chicken pox, flu, measles, polio, and some other viruses.

Doctors treat some diseases with surgery. They use surgery to take out diseased organs or tumors.

Some diseases doctors cannot yet cure or even treat. Researchers in laboratories are looking for ways to help people with these diseases.

Doctors tell people it is best to keep from getting diseases. Getting plenty of sleep and exercise and eating the right foods can help keep you healthy.

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

CANCER

Cancer—it’s scary word, and a scary disease. Cancer kills a lot of people all over the world. Only heart disease kills more Americans.

But there’s good news too. Millions of people who have had cancer are still alive. Doctors have learned a great deal about treating and preventing cancer.

WHAT IS CANCER?

Cancer is not a single disease. It includes more than 100 different diseases. They may affect any part of the body. But they have one thing in common. They are all caused by cells that are out of control.

All living things are made up of cells. An adult human body has about 30 trillion cells—that’s 30,000,000,000,000! Cells reproduce (make more cells) by dividing in half. In an adult body, about 25 million cells divide every second. That’s how the body heals itself.

Sometimes a cell goes out of control and divides over and over. And that’s what cancer is—unhealthy cells, growing and reproducing out of control. These cells are said to be cancerous.

WHY CANCER IS DANGEROUS

When cancerous cells multiply, they form clumps called tumors. Tumors can interfere with important body processes. Cancer of the lungs, for instance, interferes with breathing. Cancer of the stomach interferes with digesting food.

Cancerous cells can also spread to other parts of the body. Then new tumors form. This spreading is called metastasis. Cancer that has metastasized is the most dangerous. When cancer attacks several parts of the body, it is hard to stop.

HOW DOCTORS TREAT CANCER

The best weapon against cancer is detecting it at an early stage before it grows very much. Regular checkups by a doctor can detect cancer before it grows and spreads. People whose cancers are discovered early usually survive.

Some cancerous tumors can be removed by surgery. Doctors must remove some surrounding healthy cells, too, to be sure they get all the cancerous cells.

Radiation, such as X rays, can also kill cancer cells. So can treatment with powerful drugs, called chemotherapy. Unfortunately these treatments destroy healthy cells too. They can make people very sick. Newer treatments encourage the body’s own disease-fighting immune system to destroy cancer cells. But the newer treatments don’t work for all types of cancer.

WAYS TO PREVENT CANCER

There is no sure way to avoid cancer. But there are things people can do to greatly reduce the risk of getting cancer.

Smoking causes cancer. People who smoke get lung cancer 20 times more often than people who don’t smoke. Don’t smoke!

Doctors suspect that eating certain foods can also increase the chances of getting cancer. Eating lots of red meat and other foods high in saturated fat may make people more likely to develop cancer.

Most skin cancer is caused by too much Sun. Avoid getting sunburned. If everyone wore sunscreen or stayed out of the Sun, most cases of skin cancer would be prevented.

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

Colds and Flu

You start sneezing. Your throat gets sore and scratchy. You have to blow your nose a lot. You don’t feel very well. Do you have cold? Or do you have the flu?

Colds and flu are illnesses caused by germs. They are both caused by germs called viruses. But they are caused by different kinds of viruses. Colds are often called common colds. Flu is short for influenza.

IS IT A COLD OR THE FLU?

Signs that you have a cold or the flu are called symptoms. The symptoms of a cold and the symptoms of the flu are slightly different.

The symptoms of a cold are sore throat, cough, sneezing, and a stuffy, runny nose. Colds usually do not cause a fever.

Flu symptoms are like cold symptoms, but the flu also causes chills, fever, and headaches. It makes you feel tired and achy all over.

A cold or the flu usually lasts about a week. Every once in a while they can lead to a more serious sickness, such as an ear infection or a lung infection called pneumonia.

CATCHING A COLD OR THE FLU

People once thought you could catch a cold from getting a chill in cold weather. They thought that wet feet or drafts of cold air could give you a cold.

We now know that germs cause colds and flu. The germs are passed from one person to another. They travel in coughs and sneezes.

More colds and cases of flu happen in cold weather because people spend more time together indoors when it’s cold outside. It is easier for germs to spread when people are close together.

IS THERE A CURE?

There is no cure for the common cold. People take medicine to help their sore throats, coughs, and runny noses. Doctors say that resting in bed is the best way to treat a cold.

There is no cure for the flu, either. Doctors can give medicine to make you feel better. Resting in bed and drinking lots of juice and water is the best way to treat the flu.

AVOIDING A COLD OR THE FLU

You can get a flu shot to help keep you from catching the flu. A flu shot, or vaccination, helps your body fight off flu germs if they attack. But it doesn’t always work. The flu virus keeps changing. When it changes, the old vaccine no longer works. Doctors have to keep making new vaccines. For this reason, you need a new flu shot every year. Sometimes the flu changes enough in a single year that you can still catch it even if you’ve been vaccinated.

There is no vaccine against the common cold because more than 100 different kinds of viruses cause colds. These viruses also keep changing.

One thing you can do to protect against cold and flu germs is wash your hands before you eat anything or touch your face. Your hands may pick up the germs from door knobs or other things touched by someone with a cold. Washing your hands thoroughly kills the germs.

You can also try not to spread germs when you have a cold or the flu. Use tissues when you sneeze. Cover your mouth when you cough. And wash your hands frequently to keep from spreading cold germs to others.
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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

Chicken Pox


Boys and girls sometimes wake up with a fever, headache, and sick feeling. Then, little red bumps pop up on their faces, scalps, and bodies. Everyone knows what this means: chicken pox!

Soon, the little bumps turn into horribly itchy blisters. If the kids scratch the blisters, the blisters can get infected. An infected blister could leave a scar. Next, the blisters break open and form scabs. The scabs fall off in about two weeks. Chicken pox is no fun.

WHAT CAUSES CHICKEN POX?

A kind of germ called a virus causes chicken pox. Viruses are so tiny that you can only see them under special, powerful microscopes. There are no drugs that can cure chicken pox. Antibiotics do not kill chicken pox viruses. Antibiotics do not work on any kind of virus.

Doctors tell kids with chicken pox to stay in bed. Warm baths and lotions are good for helping the itching. Kids with chicken pox should not take aspirin. Aspirin can cause another disease called Reye’s Syndrome in kids with chicken pox.

COULD I GET CHICKEN POX?

You can get vaccinated against chicken pox. Vaccines get your body ready to fight off germs. You probably will not get chicken pox if you have been vaccinated against the virus. The vaccine is usually given to babies when they are about one year old, so you may have already gotten the shot!

The chicken pox vaccine helps your body learn what the chicken pox virus is like. When the chicken pox virus comes around after you’ve been vaccinated, your body will kill the virus right away. You will not get sick. The body’s ability to resist a disease is called immunity. Doctors are not sure how long the immunity will last. You might need to get a booster shot one day.

IS CHICKEN POX CATCHING?

Chicken pox is a contagious disease. If you haven’t been vaccinated, you can catch chicken pox from someone who has the disease. Chicken pox germs spread in coughs and sneezes. You can also catch chicken pox from touching someone’s chicken pox blister.

You would not know right away that you had chicken pox. The germs can live in a body for two weeks before causing sickness. This time is called the incubation period.

People with chicken pox can give it to someone else, starting about two days after they begin to feel sick. Chicken pox is “catching” until scabs form on all the blisters. It takes about a week for scabs to form. Kids sick with chicken pox are kept away from others during this time. They do not go to school.

CAN GROWN-UPS CATCH CHICKEN POX?

Grown-ups can catch chicken pox. They can catch the disease if they did not have it when they were children and if they were not vaccinated. Grown-ups with chicken pox get much sicker than kids do.

Grown-ups who had chicken pox as kids cannot catch it again. Their bodies recognize the chicken pox virus and kill it right away. They have lifetime immunity from chicken pox.

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.

MEASLES

“Ooh, that light is too bright! What are these red dots all over my skin?”

A kid wakes up one morning with the measles. It started out like a cold, with sneezing and a runny nose. Then along came a fever. Finally red dots spread from head to toe. The rash of red dots is the most familiar sign of measles. Measles can also make eyes sensitive to light.

Almost all kids used to get measles. Then doctors invented a measles vaccine. Now a couple of shots is all it takes to prevent measles. In the year 2000, only about 100 kids in the United States caught the disease.

IS MEASLES CATCHING?

You can catch measles from someone who has the disease. A kind of germ called a virus causes measles. Coughing and sneezing spreads the virus from one person to another.

You probably will not catch measles if you have already had measles before. Your body learns to fight off the measles virus once the virus has attacked. You also probably will not catch measles if you have had a measles vaccination.

If you do catch measles, there is not much you can do. Kids who catch measles have to stay in bed. They have to stay away from other people so that they do not spread the germs. They can put lotion on their rash, but doctors still have no way to kill the measles virus. Drugs called antibiotics don’t work on viruses.

HOW SERIOUS IS MEASLES?

People with measles usually get better in about two weeks. Sometimes measles can make a body very weak. Other germs can attack. These germs can cause lung and ear infections.

Sometimes measles harms the brain. The virus can get into the brain and cause a disease called encephalitis. People can die from encephalitis, but this does not happen very often.

IS MEASLES THE SAME AS GERMAN MEASLES?

Measles and German measles are two different diseases. They are caused by different viruses. German measles has some of the same signs as measles. But German measles does not make people as sick or last as long. German measles usually attacks older kids and young adults.

You probably were vaccinated against German measles. There has been a German measles vaccine since the 1970s. Now, only a few hundred people a year in the United States get German measles.

HAS MEASLES BEEN WIPED OUT?

Measles is now rare in Canada, the United States, and most European countries. Kids in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world still catch measles. Poor countries cannot afford to vaccinate all the children. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that about 1 million children in poor countries die from measles each year. Scientists are working on cheaper vaccines.

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.