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International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:684-686
© International Epidemiological Association 2003

Editorial

Infectious diseases—past, present, and future

Philip S Brachman

The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. E-mail: pbrachm@sph.emory.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In 1962 Sir McFarland Burnett stated, ‘By the end of the Second World War it was possible to say that almost all of the major practical problems of dealing with infectious disease had been solved.’ At that time, his statement was logical. Control and prevention measures had decreased the incidence of many infectious diseases, and with the ability to continue to identify new antibiotics, to handle new problems, and the ongoing development of appropriate vaccines, his statement appeared to be appropriate.

In the US, similar feelings were expressed and funding for infectious disease fellowships began to decline with federal resources being directed elsewhere.

The history of the world is intertwined with the impact that infectious diseases have had on populations. Evidence of smallpox has been found in 3000-year-old Egyptian mummies. Egyptian papyrus paintings depict infectious diseases such as poliomyelitis. Hippocrates wrote about the spread of disease by means of airs, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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