ABSTRACT
In the last chapter we celebrated one of the great
successes of medicine with the final eradication of
one of the great killer diseases, smallpox. It is ironic
that within a few months of the last recorded
natural smallpox case in October 1977, the first
cases of a devastating new disease were being
reported. For the western world, the ostensible start
came in the summer of 1980 when, after a long ill-
ness, a patient died in a New York City hospital from
infections which the human body can normally fight
without undue difficulty (Koch, 1987, p. 46). Cross-
checks with other US hospitals and with other coun-
tries revealed not only an alarming number of
parallel cases but a very steep rise in hospital
admissions of individuals suffering from illnesses
which pointed to the collapse of the immune
system, a feature which led to the condition being
called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or
AIDS. The world was on the edge of another of its
great pandemics.
