(And survive)
I guess, if you were a kid prior to the general release of a measles vaccine in 1963.
Why It Took So Long to Eliminate Measles
Until the vaccine’s debut in 1963, many considered measles, which still killed 500 Americans a year and hospitalized 48,000, an inevitable childhood disease that everyone had to suffer through....
Deaths were greatest in populations with no immunity, such as island nations. An 1875 outbreak in Fiji wiped out up to a third of the population in four months, and Hawaii’s first outbreak in 1848 similarly killed up to a third of the population, just two decades later the king and queen contracted it and died on a trip to England.
...
Even surviving a measles infection didn’t end your risk of death: a very rare, fatal complication called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) could develop one to two decades later, causing gradual deterioration until the person entered a coma and eventually died.
An 1822 illustration depicting the symptoms from measles.