ABSTRACT
The history of the discovery of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and its associated diseases is arguably one of the great medical detective stories of the 20th century. It is a tale of astute observations and serendipitous stumbles. It begins with the recognition of a febrile illness affecting affluent young people in the Western Hemisphere, proceeds to the observations by a missionary surgeon in East Africa of a bizarre facial tumor among young children, to a chance attendance of a lecture by a young British virologist, to the isolation of a hitherto unknown virus from tumor cell lines, to a young woman’s case of infectious mononucleosis (IM) in Philadelphia, and culminates in the identification of a ubiquitous virus that causes an array of illnesses. The range of outcomes includes asymptomatic infection, temporary but debilitating illness, encephalitis, lethal lymphoproliferative syndrome, and several malignancies including lymphoma affecting jaws and viscera, Hodgkin’s disease, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, posttransplant lymphoproliferative syndrome, and leiomyosarcoma.
