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Stanley A. Plotkin, MD

JAMA. 1984;251(15):2003-2004.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Diseases, like humans, are born and die. An example of a recent birth is legionnaires' disease, unrecognized before 1976; measles illustrates the decline and fall of a disease once common. Now we have congenital rubella syndrome as another potential example of the birth and death of a disease.¹

Gregg's² discovery of the association between rubella and congenital infection was made in 1948. Presumably the congenital rubella syndrome had not become evident earlier because, in crowded societies, infection with rubella occurs at a young age, especially when children are placed together in communal nurseries.³ Thus, only in developed countries, where many women escape infection until their childbearing years, could the congenital rubella syndrome manifest itself.

The years between 1941 and 1962 brought general recognition of the teratogenic potential of rubella, such that several laboratories set as their goal the isolation of the virus. Attainment of that goal was . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of Pennsylvania The Wistar Institute The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Footnotes
Address editorial communications to the Editor, 535 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60610.

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