Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome continues to be a major concern of the research and health care communities as well as the dominant public health issue in the news media. In the early years of the epidemic. attention was appropriately focused on characterizing the epidemiology of the disease in order to define the nature and extent of this new threat. However. as the disease affected the lives of ever increasing thousands of individuals and spread to almost every country. its ramifications were felt at every level of society. In addition to medical and research issues. profound social. economic and moral dilemmas have arisen. The implications which AIDS has on public policy continue to unfold. Recognizing the value of assembling those who were involved with AIDS on a national and international level. New York State through its Health Department brought together social scientists, researchers. clinicians. educators, community leaders. government officials and public policy analysts to explore and discuss major AIDS public policy issues at the AIDS International Symposium. This volume includes both the major papers presented as well as the discussions among the panel members which followed the presentations. Clearly, the conference demonstrated the international nature of AIDS as a public health and public policy problem. Evident also ;s that the devleopment of public policy properly begins as a dialogue, both at the interpersonal and international levels, and that the process is never complete, particularly when it concerns the type of threat that AIDS presents to the world community.

Tuberculosis once again occupies a special position in the areas of infec tious diseases and microbiology. This disease has been important to mankind since even before biblical times. Tuberculosis has been a major cause of morbidity and mortality in humans, especially in highly ur banized Europe, until a few decades ago. Indeed, this disease became a center of many novels, plays, and operas, since it appeared to be quite popular to have the heroine dying of "consumption. " Most importantly, tuberculosis also became the focus of attention for many investigations during the 19th and even the 20th centuries. Major advances were made in the areas of isolation and identification of M. tuberculosis and related microorganisms. The discovery, by Robert Koch, that tuberculosis was caused by an infectious agent revolutionized our thinking about dis eases. Koch's postulates were developed with tuberculosis in mind and became a focal point for many advances in microbiology and medicine. Studies with mycobacteria as a central focus have also led to revolu tionary new concepts about immunology in general. Koch himself showed that those exposed to M. tuberculosis develop a skin hypersen sitivity or allergy to the microorganism's antigens, an observation which was the starting point for many important developments. Indeed, imme diate-type hypersensitivity and atopic or IgE-mediated allergy were de fined in relation to the delayed-type cutaneous hypersensitivity evi denced with the tubercle bacillus."

When we were setting the theme of "infection control dilemmas and practical solutions" for this symposium, we asked ourselves a basic question: What are some of the most vexing problems and situations facing the hospital microbiologist epidemiologist team in today's world of opportunistic and new infectious diseases unheard of as common pathogenic occurrences 10 years ago? One of the areas which we immediately focused upon was the tremendous amount of time, energy, and financial resources that are presently being expended to satisfy the requirements mandated by the recognition of the danger of spread of blood-borne pathogens in the hospital environment. With the advent of Universal Precautions, primarily in response to HIV infection and the AIDS crisis, but certainly augmented by the increased incidence of hepatitis in its various forms, a significant effort has been required to meet the standards rec ommended and/or required by OSHA and the CDC. With this in mind we brought together experts in the field of infectious diseases to address the problems engendered by the threat of nosocomial spread of selected pathogens. Further, we devoted several sessions to discussing the investi gation and resolution of institutional outbreaks of disease, particularly with reference to methicillin-resistant Staphylo coccus aureus (MRSA). Special problems of dental offices and clinical teaching as well as extended care facilities were also selected for attention, particularly with relation to blood borne pathogens."

Scientists from 24 countries who participated in the ~ Symposium on Candida and Candidamycosis, 24-28 April 1989, Antalya, Turkey, have made important contributions to a better understanding of Candida and its infections - by their presence, presentations and discussions in the meeting. The Turkish Microbiological Society, organizing the Symposium in the name of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS), thanks all participants for realising this important meeting on such an important subject. In this book the full manuscripts of invited and free papers of the meeting are presented. The Editors extend their sincere thanks to all contributors of papers; to FEMS for encouraging and undertaking the arrangements for publication; to Ege University Publishing House for printing; to Plenum Publishing Company for publishing; and to all colleagues and friends who with their help contributed to this book. The Editors wish that this volume would contribute to a better understanding of Candida and its infections by colleagues working and/or interested in mycology and mycotic diseases.

It is now widely acknowledged that at the beginning of this century Claude von Pirquet first pointed out that a viral disease, i. e., measles, resulted in an anergy or depression of preexisting immune response, namely, delayed continuous hypersensitivity to PPD derived from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Thereafter ob servations that viral infections may result in immunosuppression have been recorded by many clinicians and infectious disease investigators for six or seven decades. Nevertheless, despite sporadic reports that infectious diseases caused by viruses may result in either transient or prolonged immunodepression, investigation of this phenomenon languished until the mid-1960s, when it was pointed out that a number of experimental retroviral infections of mice with tumor viruses may result in marked immunosuppression. However, it was not until the recognition of the new epidemic of acquired immunodeficiency syn drome (AIDS) caused by the human immunodeficiency virus and related vi ruses that acquired immunodeficiencies associated with virus infection became general knowledge among biomedical investigators as well as the lay public. A number of reviews published during the past decade or so pointed out that numerous viruses may affect humoral and cellular immune responses. Furthermore, expanding knowledge about the nature and mechanisms of both humoral and cellular immunity and pathogenesis of viral infections has pro vided clinical and experimental models for investigating in depth how and why viruses of man and animals profoundly affect immune responses."

"Have a chew of dulie," said Crubog . . . "What is it?" asked Potter, half-suspiciously. "Seaweed. " "Is it good for the virility? . . . " "And what is the virility?" asked the old man. "Does it make you more attractive to women?" Potier shouted in his ear. "No. " "What is it good for then?" "WortnS. " "Worms?" "Intestinal worms. You'll never again pass a worm if you eat a fistful of dulse first thing in the morning and last thing at night. " "If it's an anthelmintic, I'll try a spot of it," said Potter. - From Bogmail, a novel by Patrick McGinley (1981) With modern techniques of chemical isolation and structure determination, the old distinction between herbal and chemical remedies has largely been broken down. By chemotherapy we now mean simply the treatment of disease by drugs (the word medicines has unhappily been eclipsed). The distinction made between chemotherapy and non chemical therapy (e. g., radiation, physiotherapy, surgical intervention, immu nomodulation) remains useful despite some minor overlapping. The present work thus deals with drugs and their use in parasitic disease. (Since we are dealing with the treatment of incipient as well as established infection, chemotherapy subsumes chem oprophylaxis as well as chemotherapeusis per se. ) Definition of parasitism as a biological modus vivendi, although important in itself, need not concern us here. We need simply delimit the scope of the book, and that is easily done."

Our motivation for putting together this book was the need for a single source reference that could be used as an introduction to cell-mediated cytotoxicity for newcomers to this field, such as students and fellows beginning work in our laboratories. At present no such book is available, and we felt that it would be useful as a teaching tool and as a way of conveying our enthusiasm about recent progress in the cytotoxicity field to our colleagues in allied areas. It was with some hesitation that we approached our colleagues with the proposal for this book, and we were pleased to find them very supportive of the idea and willing to participate. We thought it important to broaden the scope of the book to include historical, molecular, cell biological, and clinical aspects of cell-mediated cytotoxicity. To our knowledge this is the first book on cell-mediated cytotoxicity with such a broad scope. Historically, studies on cellular cytotoxicity were part of cellular immunology from its origin. One development of tremendous import was the advent of the 51 Cr assay, which allowed this arm of the immune response to be measured easily and quantitatively. Thus, a readout of this effector pathway is available within a few hours; other immune effector functions can take days or even longer to assay, and the assays are often less quantitative.

No one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced to narrow limits. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, II, 1863 Mill was not writing about herpesviruses, but had he known them as we do, he would have included them among the great positive evils of the world. They cause disease and premature death, and are very costly to our society. There is no loftier aim than to cure or prevent human infections with these viruses. The objective of much of the current research on herpesviruses is directed toward an understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in initiation of infection, establish ment and termination of latent state, virus multiplication, and the destruction of cells which ultimately is the basis of the diseases caused by these viruses. At no time during the past 80 years, since members of the herpesvirus family were first discovered, has there been so much progress in our understanding of the biology of these viruses as in the past few years. Along with the development of a greater understanding of the molecular biol ogy of the well-known herpesviruses we have witnessed the isolation of new human herpes viruses.

Die Krankheiten sind keine unvedinderlichen Erscheinungen, sie sind histo- rischen Wandlungen und wechselnden geographischen und demographischen Ver- haltnissen unterworfen. Deshalb wechselt auch das Gesamtbild der Krankheiten, das Krankheitspanorama, von Zeit zu Zeit, von Land zu Land, von Ort zu Ort. Zu den vielen Faktoren, die bei der Gestaltung des Krankheitspanoramas wirksam sind, geh6ren die Ernahrungsverhaltnisse, die sozialen und hygienischen Verhalt- nisse, die Epi-und Endemien und Epi-und Enzootien mit der nachher eintreten- den Immunitat, die Fortschritte der medizinischen Forschung und Therapie und schliel3lich die mit den anderen Faktoren eng verbundenen Veranderungen der mittleren Lebenslange, also heutzutage die starke Steigerung derselben, vor aHem in groBen Teilen von Europa und Nordamerika. Diese Wandlungen des Krank- heitspanoramas haben u. a. HARBITZ, HENSCHEN, CmARl, KUHNT, BODECHTEL, BERG, MUNCK, HAMPERL und LOFFLER behandelt. DOERR et al. haben den Wandel der Krankheitsbilder in einer gr6Beren Arbeit abgehandelt. Auf die pathogene- tische Bedeutung der starken sozial-6konomischen Umwandlungen im heutigen Afrika hat MURRAY neuerdings die Aufmerksamkeit gerichtet. In Landern mit zuverlassigen statistischen Angaben sind Veranderungen der Morbiditat und Mortalitat schon innerhalb relativ kurzer Zeitintervalle bemerkbar. Ais Beispiel sei folgende Tabelle angefUhrt, die schwedische Verhaltnisse betrifft und die Verschiebungen der Mortalitat innerhalb einiger der wichtigsten Krank- heitsgruppen zeigt. In die TabeHe sind nur die wichtigsten Gruppen aufgenom- men, die gr6Bere Veranderungen zeigen.

Virus diseases continue to represent serious health problems in most parts of the world. In spite of the fact that diseases such as polio myelitis and measles have been controlled in the industrialized countries by vaccination, vaccines now in use in tropical countries have proved not to be optimal. Further research is needed to develop new vaccines that will be effective in all countries. To do so we need to understand better the immune response to different viruses so that we may be able to maxi mize the protective response of new vaccines and minimize their potential immunopathologic effect. An exciting new discovery which is now being further developed is the possibility of being able to use some viruses (e.g. vaccinia, adenoviruses, etc.), as carriers for other antigens. This may open up the way for the production of vaccines that will be inexpensive and that will confer long lasting immunity after only one injection. This meeting has also served to review our present knowledge of virus diseases which are still of great importance such as hepatitis, dengue and influenza."

Attachment to host cells or tissues is often the first step in the establishment of bacterial infections. A complex array of recognition, attachment, and virulence factors is involved in this process, which recent research has greatly illuminated. This comprehensive and authoritative volume discusses the specific cell and tissue-specific affinities of pathogenic microorganisms, including bioinorganic surfaces such as teeth, and is an essential reference for researchers and students of host-pathogen interactions.

In 2020, an invisible germ-a virus-wholly upended our lives. We're most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or Covid-19. But viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long that we are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground. Fully revised and updated, with new illustrations and a new chapter about coronaviruses and the spread of Covid-19, this third edition of Carl Zimmer's A Planet of Viruses pulls back the veil on this hidden world. It presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate as long as life endures

As a group, western diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, allergies and mental health problems constitute one of the major problems facing humans at the beginning of the 21st century, particularly as they extend into poorer countries. An evolutionary perspective has much to offer standard biomedical understandings of western diseases. At the heart of this approach is the notion that human evolution occurred in circumstances very different from the modern affluent western environment and that, as a consequence, human biology is not adapted to the contemporary western environment. Written with an anthropological perspective and aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduates taking courses in the ecology and evolution of disease, Tessa Pollard applies and extends this evolutionary perspective by analysing trends in rates of western diseases and providing a new synthesis of current understandings of evolutionary processes, and of the biology and epidemiology of disease.

It was not too long ago that many physicians and biomedical scientists felt that the era of 'vaccines' for protecting mankind against infectious disease was coming to an end. During the 1 940s and 50s the widespread use of newly developed antibiotics and antimicrobial chemotherapeutic agents suggested a new era in medicine, i. e. the control and eventual elimination of all infectious diseases, at least those caused by bacteria, by' chemical means. The magic 'bullet' proposed by Paul Ehrlich in the early 1900s seemed to be the method of choice for controling infection. However, it is now quite evident that those high expectations were unwarranted. Although many acute infections, especially those caused by pyogenic cocci, have been controlled by antibiotics, it is quite evident that infectious diseases, even those caused by bacteria, still are a major problem. Thus, the old 'standby' of preventative vaccination is making a strong comeback, not only for viral but also for bacterial infections. However, except for a relatively small number of viral diseases and those bacterial diseases due to toxin elaborated by microorganisms rather than invasion and replication of the microbe per se, preventative vaccination still has not fulfilled the expectations of their proponents. There has been a recent resurgence of interest concerning all aspects of vaccines, not only their preparation and administration, but also the nature and mechanism of the host immune response to the constituent micro organisms and their products."

Renal Failure Prevention and Treatment in the 19808 It appears logical to juxtapose in this volume prevention-low cost and nonmorbid-with uremia therapy, which is very morbid and very high cost. Treated uremic patients constitute an important, complex, and demanding group of survivors of a formerly universally fatal disease. Throughout the developed nations of the world, an increasing fraction of the health care budget is devoted to sustaining lives by dialytic therapy and renal transplantation. In the United States, for example, patients in renal failure comprise 0.2% of those eligible for support by Medicare, but consume 5.0% of the Medicare budget. Economic stresses in funding kidney patients have, in some countries such as Great Britain, forced a return to restrictive selection policies abhorrent to empathetic physicians. For third world residents, attention to nutrition, sanitation, and infections such as malaria must take a higher priority than costly uremia therapy. Thus the solution of one problem (retarding death from uremia) created several equally vexing other dilemmas (who should be treated and at what cost?). While sociologists, economists, and ethicists struggle with the new field of psychonephrology,1 a group of investigators and clinicians convened to examine medical aspects of long-surviving treated uremic patients. These proceedings represent the first American analyis of those unique patients who have lived for ten or more years beyond what would have formerly been certain death in uremia.

Computer-based infectious disease surveillance systems are capable of real-time or near real-time detection of serious illnesses and potential bioterrorism agent exposures and represent a major step forward in disease surveillance. Infectious Disease Informatics: Syndromic Surveillance for Public Health and Bio-Defense is an in-depth monograph that analyzes and evaluates the outbreak modeling and detection capabilities of existing surveillance systems under a unified framework, and presents the first book-length coverage of the subject from an informatics-driven perspective. Individual chapters consider the state of the art, including the facilitation of data collection, sharing and transmission; a focus on various outbreak detection methods; data visualization and information dissemination issues; and system assessment and other policy issues. Eight chapters then report on several real-world case studies, summarizing and comparing eight syndromic surveillance systems, including those that have been adopted by many public health agencies (e.g., RODS and BioSense). The book concludes with a discussion of critical issues and challenges, with a look to future directions. This book is an excellent source of current information for researchers in public health and IT. Government public health officials and private-sector practitioners in both public health and IT will find the most up-to-date information available, and students from a variety of disciplines, including public health, biostatistics, information systems, computer science, and public administration and policy will get a comprehensive look at the concepts, techniques, and practices of syndromic surveillance.

William Trager has been an avid student of parasites for over 50 years at the Rockefeller University. Around the turn of this century, parasitology enjoyed a certain vogue, inspired by colonial responsibilities of the technically ad vanced countries, and by the exciting etiological and therapeutic discoveries of Ross, Manson, Ehrlich, and others. For some decades, the Western hemi sphere's interest in animal parasites has been eclipsed by concern for bacteria and viruses as agents of transmissible disease. Only very recently, initiatives like the Tropical Disease Research programs of WHO-World Bank-UNDP, and the Great Neglected Disease networks of the Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations have begun to compensate for the neglect of these problems by United States federal health research agencies. Throughout that period, how ever, the Rockefeller Institute (later University) has given high priority to the challenges of parasitism, corresponding during a formidable period with Dr. Trager's own career. The present work then, is a distillation of the insight collected by our principal doyen of parasite biology, informed but by no means confined to his own research. It is addressed to the reader of broad biological interest and training, not to the specialist. The disarmingly unpretentious style makes the work readily accessible to college undergraduates or even to gifted high school students; but do not be deceived thereby, as it has an enormous range of factual information and theoretical insight, familiar to few, but potentially important to most biologists."

It has only recently been appreciated that the immune and skeletal systems have major interactions. It is now well documented that osteoclasts, which are important cellular mediators of skeletal homeostasis, are derived from hematopoietic precursors that also give rise to immune cells. In addition, numerous cytokines that were first shown to regulate immune cell function have also been demonstrated to regulate bone cells and influence skeletal health. Conversely, products of bone cells appear critical for the engraftment of marrow in bone, the normal development of the hematopoietic and immune systems and provide niche for long-term memory B and T cells.

In the past scientists involved in immune and bone cell investigations have rarely interacted in a significant way as these disciplines have developed independently and, for the most part, remain separate. The conference will bring together leading international scientists from both fields to interact so that new collaboration can develop and more rapid progress in understanding the relationships between these fields can be achieved. Short talks will be selected from abstracts from the international community. This conference will have a format to provide an environment of maximum interaction and interchange through lectures, posters, and open discussion.

Immunizationisoneofthegreatadvancesinpublichealth. Figure0. 1showsacamel with a solar-powered refrigerator on his back carrying vaccines across a hot desert to the far reaches of civilization. Many vaccines contain live viruses that need to be kept cold, or the vaccine viruses will die, and the vaccines will lose their ability to produce an immune response. Thus a continuous chain of refrigeration, the cold chain, from the origin to delivery of some vaccines needs to be maintained. The inspiration of the camel image is that it represents the dedication of the world to bring vaccines to everyone. The ?rst major success, and the origin of the word vaccination (vacca for cow), was Jenner's introducing cowpox-based vaccine against smallpox in the late 18th century. After nearly a century hiatus, at the end of the 19th century, inoculations against cholera, typhoid, plague (caused by bacteria) and rabies (caused by a virus) were developed. By the early 20th century, statisticians of the stature of Karl Pe- son, Major Greenwood, and Udny Yule were heartily involved in discussions of evaluating these vaccines in the ?eld. In the 1920s, new vaccines included pert- sis, diptheria, tetanus, and bacille Calmette-Guerin ' against tuberculosis. The 1930s saw development of yellow fever, in?uenza, and rickettsia vaccines. After World War II, the advent of cell cultures in which viruses could grow enabled production of polio vaccine and vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, and a- novirus, among others (Plotkin et al 2008).

This book is intended to educate the primary health care provider about sexually transmitted and related diseases as they present in homosexually active men. But why a book discussing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in this population only? Surely STDs are not limited to homosexual males. The relatively high rates of incidence of many of these diseases among homosexually active men, however, and the large number of associated diagnostic and treatment problems have necessitated the collection into one volume of the information that is par ticularly relevant to the primary health care of this population. A book dealing with current trends in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual diseases can, by nature of the task, be neither encyclopedic nor all-encompassing. In this volume, the choice of disease entities and the amount of material included on each are based on consideration of the amount of current information and the relative degree of uniqueness of a given problem in homosexual men, rather than the absolute frequency of the disease. There is, therefore, a considerable amount of material on hepatitis B and gonococcal infections, reflecting the recent explosion of research and clinical investigation in these two areas. In contrast, little is said about nonspecific urethritis, chancroid, and lymphogranuloma ve nereum. In the case of nonspecific urethritis, although it is extremely common in homosexual men, little progress has been made in diagnosis or therapy."

The purpose of this book is to provide a concise account of those parasites which affect man in developed countries. Other textbooks relate mainly to the tropics and subtropics where parasites by comparison are more common. It is widely believed that this difference in prevalence between tropical and temperate countries is due to differences in climatic conditions alone. Whilst it is true that certain vectors can only act as transmitters of disease under climatic conditions found in the tropics, there are many other instances where climate per se is not a decisive factor. More often parasitic disease is related to the poor standards of hygiene, sanitation and nutrition, which characterize many of these tropical and subtropical areas. The advent of more international travel has added a new dimension to the study of parasites, with the appearance of rare and exotic parasitic infections in the West. This book encompasses the entire field of parasites in developed countries with a brief reference to other parts of the world whenever appropriate for the sake of completeness. Each chapter provides basic information as well as recent advances and current thinking. Thus the book will serve as an excellent, comprehensive in troduction to those taking up a specialized interest in the subject, as well as those who may wish to obtain general information but are not actively working in the field. Although it is primarily written from a medical and veterinary stand point, it provides valuable material for other disciplines."

A practising clinician is required to use knowledge from many differ ent fields. It is unrealistic to expect him to be master of more than a few. In reality, clinicians acquire a smattering of information on most relevant subjects, and learn which texts provide the detailed informa tion which is occasionally required on more highly specialized matters. In my professional contacts with clinicians and medical students it has become evident that they often lack the simple frame work of microbiological knowledge necessary to guide their actions. This is because standard textbooks and learned treatises alike are con cerned with imparting a body of information rather than with present ing what the doctor needs to know in order to manage his patients. This volume is an attempt to help clinicians in their everyday practice. To that end I have kept it short and have not dwelt at length even on those topics which especially interest me. No attempt has been made to write a textbook: many of these already exist. A few refer ences are given to major reviews and to sources justifying some of the more forthright statements. The subject of medical microbiology is broad and involved. I have therefore seen it as my task to simplify the presentation of the material, being very selective with regard to content and giving my own views on matters of clinical significance."

In the first place may I say how grateful I and others are to those who have contributed chapters for this book; all of them are well known for their research on the subject on which they have written and each has indicated the background to his own specialist field by providing an extensive bibliography giving this book a total reference list of over 2,500. Although there have been enormous advances in immunology over recent years, much of the new knowledge in relation to infectious diseases was scattered over the world's literature and is now brought together in a single volume. Furthermore, while a number of previously unknown infectious diseases have recently been discovered (e.g. Marburg and Lassa virus infections and Legionnaires' disease) to which many new techniques have been applied, there seemed to be no clear statement of the rationale for their use, or for their further exploitation in some of the more common infectious diseases which are discussed in this book.

Within eighteen months of the preparation of the first edition much has happened in the AIDS field. The number affected are still increas at an alarming rate - these are now (at December 1986) almost ing 30000 cases in the United States and over 600 cases in the United Kingdom. Worldwide the AIDS pandemic is a most serious disease threat and now affects over 80 countries. It is estimated that for every AIDS patient there are about 50 other persons infected with the AIDS virus. AIDS threatens every country and every society. The main pre ventative measures of health education to prevent the spread of AIDS must be taken by millions of individuals helped by governments and voluntary organizations. What is clear is that AIDS and AIDS related conditions will be with us, in our hospitals and in our com munities for many years to come. It has been well established that the agent that causes AIDS is a virus called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). People can catch HIV through sexual contact or by infected blood from infected needles and syringes, from infected mother to unborn child, or treatment with contaminated blood or blood products."

The literature of medicine continues to expand at a remarkable pace. The number of papers and monographs published has increased dramatically in the past five years. Nowhere has this increase been as dramatic as in the field of acute and chronic hepatitis. Why then should there be still another book? Despite the sheer volume of words published, it is still difficult to find in anyone volume a compilation of all of the most significant work. Most mono graphs have considered either chronic or acute hepatitis, not both. Few works have addressed both the clinician and the basic scientist. This book addresses both of these audiences and considers both of these diseases. It was designed to provide an authoritative but concise assessment of our changing concepts of acute and chronic hepatitis. It covers what is currently known and, based on the most convincing research, believed about these diseases. To fulfill this ambitious goal, only authors with international reputations in their fields of expertise were invited to contribute. In the evolution of our current thoughts on the pathogenesis and manage ment of acute and chronic hepatitis, our ideas have changed several times. This book presents the facts as they are known today and, in areas where all the facts are not established, presents the well-founded opinions of those considered to be authorities. The authors present established and usually confirmed data and do not deal extensively with areas of speculation or unconfirmed material."